Ipswitch sells Internet email products based on Windows servers. The focus is on small and medium-sized businesses. In its field, Ipswitch is one of the established leaders.

The company has recently evolved a way of selling email-as-a-service, via its partner, Rackspace. Rackspace offers managed hosted applications. This usually means Rackspace puts up one or more blades at its data center for you, and runs the applications you want.

Rackspace started in 2004 with 25 Ipswitch mail servers, offering email-as-a-service. It now has some 525 mail servers, supporting about 100,000 seats. Most users access their email via Outlook, followed by Webmail. Nice growth for Rackspace, and a nice new channel for Ipswitch. … David Ferris

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Scalix plans to open source its Community Edition. This doesn’t affect its Enterprise Edition business, but it should help Scalix be better regarded in the FLOSS community.

Scalix is based on technology licensed from HP — specifically, OpenMail. When this analyst was at HP, we thought it would be impossible to open source OpenMail. We believed it was too polluted with things we didn’t have the rights to publish. For example, dbVista and the Microsoft-proprietary TNEF unpacker.

However, it seems that the opened code won’t include the MAPI Outlook service provider. By specifying the "Community Edition," Scalix is signaling that it won’t publish the source of things like MAPI, TNEF, Active Directory integration, and Ajax group scheduling. … Richi Jennings

Rumor has it that MessageLabs is looking for a buyer, and has engaged UBS as investment banker. We believe the rumor to be correct.

All in all, it’s probably a good time for MessageLabs stockholders to sell:

• Generally, plenty of M&A interest in the malware field — think of the recent acquisition of BlackSpider by SurfControl, and of CipherTrust by Secure Computing; and less recently, of FrontBridge by Microsoft.
• MessageLabs is a leading hosted provider, with good technology and people.
• So valuations should be good.
• MessageLabs management has many strengths, but it’s not been as good at generating profits as shareholders have wished. Merging with another firm facilitates the generation of wealth.

The prospectus asserts:

• 61% CAGR since FY02, resulting in an estimated ₤50 million ($92 million) in FY06, with positive growth outlook.
• EBITDA margin of 15% and net income positive in FY06, projected to increase ahead of growth in sales.

One caution: It is easy to mistake the financials of the parent, MessageLabs Group, with those of the MessageLabs business. That may make MessageLabs’ P&L look rosier. Nothing, however, that due diligence won’t clarify. … David Ferris

Encryption vendor PGP has just announced NetShare, which provides encrypted access to shared file folders.

The approach is interesting because traditional approaches have been problematic. Traditionally, you create a file directory and give access privileges to the people who need access to the directory. However, those users can copy the files elsewhere, such as their desktop. The files are then effectively out of control, and cleartext copies can easily be put into circulation.

With NetShare, when an authorized users wants access, that user is given an encrypted version that he or she opens with a private key. In other words, if a copy is removed from the directory, it remains encrypted. A nice idea. NetShare is available in beta form now from the PGP Web site, with general availability in late 2006. … David Ferris

The Internet has revolutionized the way we purchase many products and services, as some airlines and travel agents may have noticed.

A messaging firm, Deluxe Business, with all the latest whizzy Ajax/Web 2.0 bells and whistles, just put itself on sale at eBay. It received 25 bids and sold for $14,300.

There goes the investment banking business. … David Ferris and Jeff Ubois

When a mobile phone is lost or stolen, you need to be able to remotely and easily wipe off sensitive information, and preferably lock the phone.

Synchronica offers mobile device management technology. Its remote wipe-and-lock has a very nice feature we’ve just learned about. The company call it the "scream" feature. If someone steals your device, you call your help desk. They issue a standard remote wipe-and-lock command. Plus it causes the device to emit a loud annoying sound. This isn’t just a gimmick. The thief might still be close to you, say in a restaurant, and you might be able to identify the person.

… David Ferris

On July 5, Microsoft announced that it will fund the development of an open source translation tool between Open XML (the default file format for Office 2007) and Open Document Format (ODF).

At first glance this is a somewhat unconventional approach, as opposed to simply developing this capability and building it into its own products. One possible explanation is that Microsoft is making a genuine effort to act in the spirit of openness, by taking a completely hands-off approach to addressing this issue.

Another explanation might be that while Microsoft wants to be seen as supporting open standards, it doesn’t want to make it too easy for Office users to interoperate with users of alternative software products that save files as ODF by default. Users who want to read .ODF files will still need to download and install the open source translation component since it will not be part of a standard installation.

In either case, the promise of a translation add-in for Office should come as welcome news to customers. Ironically, the Microsoft announcement should also be welcome news to IBM, which has voiced strong support for ODF in recent months in its own Workplace offerings. If interoperability issues can be eliminated (or at least minimized), organizations will benefit by having more software options, and improvements in product quality will result from increased competition.

… David Via