Sendmail Tries to Help Mobile Workers

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Eyeing the market of mobile workers that spend little time behind desks,
Emeryville, Calif.-based Sendmail Tuesday joined forces with
Hewlett-Packard and Intel to push a
Linux-based mail solution for corporate email infrastructures.

Noting that “deskless” mobile workers represent more than half of all
employees in a typical enterprise, Sendmail said many organizations have
found it too costly and complex to equip deskless workers with email
capabilities.

“Enterprises are looking for less expensive email seats, and service
providers are looking to increase their revenue by offering additional
services,” said Joyce Graff, vice president and research director for
Gartner. “These two pressures are moving the enterprise and Internet mail
markets together into a single messaging market that servers enterprises,
extended enterprises, extranets and service providers with standards-based
messaging decoupled from other collaboration support functions.”

Targeting that opportunity, Sendmail turned to SuSE Linux’s new Carrier
Grade Linux (CGL) edition of its Enterprise Server, powered by UnitedLinux,
to support a new policy-based corporate wireless email solution. Unveiled in April, the CGL edition is intended to support organizations in
deploying products and services on a standards-based modular communications
platform.

The product, Workforce Mail, targets hospital nurses, field service staff,
warehouse/store managers and delivery personnel, allowing them to use
kiosks or wireless access devices to communicate with company headquarters,
human resources and other departments.

“Providing email to deskless workers enables the organization to speak to
all employees at the same time with a consistent voice,” said Mark Levitt,
vice president of Collaborative Computing at IDC. “Deskless workers feel
more connected to the organization because they know what’s happening,
which tends to improve morale and employee satisfaction.”

Sendmail seeks to tackle Microsoft and IBM with Workforce Mail, noting that their respective Microsoft
Exchange and Lotus Notes products are cost-prohibitive for organizations
with deskless workforces that can number tens of thousands of users. To
extend Microsoft’s and IBM’s collaboration tools to deskless workers
requires deployment of additional server hardware, Sendmail noted, as well
as increased deployment, maintenance and administration costs. This is on
top of the cost per seat. For example, Microsoft Exchange goes for $67 per
seat, the company said. Sendmail’s Workforce Mail, on the other hand,
clocks in at $8.50 per seat.

The product extends corporate email policy to deskless workers, giving
organizations the ability to manage risk more effectively. Sendmail said
the system can even be set up to permit business-only usage.

But deploying it doesn’t mean scrapping existing collaboration systems. The
company noted that Workforce Mail uses Sendmail Directory Server to provide
seamless integration with systems like GroupWise, Microsoft Exchange and
Lotus Notes. In addition, Sendmail Directory Server is available on Intel’s
Itanium2, providing scalability for large-scale workforces.

Workforce Mail is packaged with content management software as well as
anti-spam and anti-virus components, in addition to the policy enforcement
filters. It is integrated with HP’s ProLiant servers and Intel’s new
Centrino wireless platform.