FEATURE EDITORIAL

Empower Customers

A study released this week indicates that customer empowerment through technology will have the greatest impact on business processes and online investments over the next five years. Habeas, Inc., a provider of email reputation management (ERM) services, jointly released key findings of the Economist Intelligence Unit Digital Company 2013 study with survey co-sponsors AT&T, Nokia, PricewaterhouseCoopers, SAP, Concep Global and WebEx. The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) is the business information arm of The Economist Group, publisher of The Economist. The EIU study, which includes feedback from more than 650 enterprise executives, over half of whom hold C-suite titles, shows a key driving force for this change will be the technology-enhanced interaction between employees, suppliers, investors and, most importantly, customers. The data also shows that, over the next five years, email via fixed and mobile devices will solidify its position as the most important communication channel to businesses for establishing and maintaining strong online business interactions with these audiences.

Highlights from the Digital Company 2013 study include:

· According to survey respondents, email (93 percent) and the Web (81 percent) maintain their leading positions as preferred business communications channels, and will continue to do so through 2013. The study also finds a general increase in adoption across other emerging "networked" channels by 2013 to enable companies to build new competencies in-house and collaborate with outside partners.

·  Company leaders indicate that customer empowerment through technology will have a profound and positive effect on their businesses. Over 76 percent believe this empowerment will positively impact new product and service development and 73 percent expect that is will have a positive influence on revenues.
 
·  Organizations believe that the most significant impact on their business models between today and 2013 will be as a result of technology-led operational changes.
 
·  Executives anticipate technology changes will considerably affect their company's customer service (40 percent of respondents) and sales and marketing (24 percent) initiatives, which rely heavily on email and Web communications.
 
· Operations (billing and payment, product/customer support, order processing, marketing) that are increasingly facilitated and/or automated with email and Web applications and communications comprise the top four areas which businesses believe will experience tremendous change.

"The Internet enables collaboration between empowered customers and the businesses with which they choose to engage," said Des Cahill, CEO, Habeas. "As customers increasingly expect greater input into how organizations interact with them, smart organizations of all sizes will gain advantages today and in the future by transforming this increased customer involvement from risk to opportunity and long-term success."

Proofpoint Acquires SaaS Email Archiving Vendor Fortiva

Late last week, Proofpoint Inc., a provider of unified email security and data loss prevention solutions, announced that it acquired Fortiva, Inc., a provider of on-demand email archiving solutions for legal discovery, regulatory compliance and email storage management. Proofpoint notes that the acquisition strengthens the company's position as a leading vendor of SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) and hybrid solutions for email security, data loss prevention and email archiving.

    "Our customers look to Proofpoint to help them manage, protect and enable their corporate email. Secure, easy-to-use email archiving is one of the most frequently-requested features from our global customer base," says Gary Steele, CEO of Proofpoint. "Fortiva's email archiving solution is the most advanced, secure, easy-to-deploy and cost-effective solution in the market today and we're excited to have Fortiva's team and technology as part of Proofpoint. Fortiva's on-demand solution is a natural extension to Proofpoint's email security platform, so nearly all of our customers can deploy and benefit from Fortiva immediately."

According to Proofpoint, all Fortiva products and services will continue to be available without disruption in service for current Fortiva customers and channel partners. Development and support for the Fortiva Archiving Suite will continue to be based out of Fortiva's Canadian headquarters in Toronto, Ontario. Proofpoint Email Archiving, the Proofpoint-branded version of Fortiva's archiving solution, is available immediately through Proofpoint and its global network of channel partners. The company believes the solution is ideal for any organization running Microsoft Exchange 2000, 2003 or 2007 with Active Directory Server.

ActiveBerry Brings ActiveSync To BlackBerry Smartphones

This week MailSite Software, Inc. announced ActiveBerry, which the company describes as the industry's first and only ActiveSync software client for BlackBerry smartphones. ActiveBerry is a small software plug-in for BlackBerry smartphones that can be quickly downloaded over-the-air. ActiveBerry delivers the same ActiveSync functionality to BlackBerry smartphones that is built-in to the new Apple iPhone 3G. "We are seeing tremendous interest in our new ActiveBerry product with hosting providers," said John Davies, president and CEO.  "ActiveBerry makes it possible for hosting providers and small businesses to support BlackBerry devices with a significantly simplified architecture—thereby saving money and improving reliability." Also showing interest in ActiveBerry this week is BlackBerry's Research In Motion, as the company requested MailSite to stop using the name ActiveBerry. A company spokesperson says a new product name will be forthcoming.

Observes David Ferris of Ferris Research, "Adoption of mobile push email, calendar and contacts is just beginning to take-off. ActiveBerry extends the market opportunity for BlackBerry smartphones beyond large enterprises into the hosting market and the small business market." ActiveBerry works without the BlackBerry Internet Service and the BlackBerry Enterprise Server. This removes additional complexity, making it easier for hosting providers and small enterprises to deploy BlackBerry smartphones in a heterogeneous environment alongside Windows Mobile and iPhone devices. For more on ActiveBerry go here.

MESSAGING NEWS CASE STUDY BRIEF:

Real World Solutions from People in the Trenches featuring Abaca, Inc and BLaST Intermediate Unit 17

BLaST Intermediate Unit (IU) 17 is an education service agency whose mission is to deliver effective, efficient and economical services to the 19 Pennsylvania school districts and 36,000 students in its Intermediate Unit. Since BLaST IU 17 has a public mission, the email addresses of many of its departments and employees are public as well. So in the course of reaching out to students, parents, teachers, and administrators, BLaST IU 17 became an easy target for spammers. Over a five-year period, BLaST IU 17 tried several popular email filters. As time progressed, they had only marginal success in blocking spam.

Hoping to find a more effective solution to BLaST IU 17's spam problem, Jon Paulhamus, assistant director of technology at BLaST IU 17, did a Google search that led him to Abaca Technology Corporation's Abaca Email Protection Gateway. Two things jumped out at him right away: Abaca's quarantine feature for individual users and the company's guaranteed 99 percent accuracy in blocking spam. When Paulhamus installed and configured the Abaca Email Protection Gateway appliance, the entire process took just 10 minutes. The results of Abaca's spam-filtering accuracy were apparent that same day. "Our spam problem went away immediately," recalls Paulhamus. "Within 48 hours email users stared coming up and thanking me for eliminating all the spam from their mailboxes."

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