EMERYVILLE, Calif. – October 25th, 2006 – Sendmail, Inc., the leading global provider of trusted messaging, celebrates today 25 Years of Internet Mail and unveils a new corporate strategy designed to restore trusted business communications (see related release dated October 25th, 2006). On October 25th, 1981, while attending U.C. Berkeley, Sendmail Founder and Chief Science Officer, Eric Allman began work on his version of the SMTP implementation that became sendmail, the Open Source Mail Transfer Agent (MTA) that emerged as the standard for Internet Mail, which is today responsible for handling more than 65 percent of the email messages sent worldwide. Capitalizing on the reach and connectivity of the Internet, email has transcended from a tool used by few to the ubiquitous business and social application it is today.
The Staggering Growth and Impact of Email
Over the last 25 years, email has developed into the de facto standard for global business and personal communications, today representing more than 130 billion daily transactions1. From the home computer to the corporate office to handheld devices on the go, email has revolutionized the way people connect today. In the U.S. alone, 88 percent of adult Internet users have personal email accounts, while 46 percent of them have email access at work2. Together more than 147 million people across the country use email, almost every day. And the number of email users is expected to increase, nearly doubling from 1.5 billion in 2003 to 2.7 billion in 20072. Unfortunately, the adoption and popularity of email has triggered an onslaught of threats leading to a lack of trust. (1Radicati; 2DMA)
- 130 billion email messages are sent per day, 71% is spam (Radicati)
- 70 billion directory attacks, spammers trying to steal directory data, occurred in 2005
- 90% of all viruses and worms infect the enterprise through email (Gartner)
In 1998, Allman recognized the growing challenges of security and manageability in a connected world and thus founded Sendmail, Inc. to expand on the Open Source sendmail foundation with the goal of solving the Internet's most pressing challenge - trusted email communications.
“Reaching the 25 year milestone of Internet mail affords us the unique opportunity to reflect upon the significant impact email has had on our lives, and to look forward to what the future holds,” said Allman. “In 1981 when I developed the first implementation of sendmail, I had not envisioned this type of widespread adoption. Back then, the Internet was based on trust with security being an afterthought. The future relies largely
on our ability to restore trusted communications. Sendmail’s technology is uniquely positioned to deliver this trust due to the openness of our platform.”
Sendmail Addresses Global Need to Restore Trusted Business Communications
In conjunction with celebrating 25 years of Internet Mail, Sendmail announced today a comprehensive strategic vision to provide the only end-to-end solution spanning the needs of the Secure Content Management market. This solution will enable customers to address both internal and external threats carried in a variety of messaging protocols via one single, open platform with integrated dashboard reporting that meets the needs of compliance enforcement and secure content management.
Industry Pays Tribute to 25 Years of Trusted Messaging
On the 25th anniversary of Sendmail’s Internet Mail milestone, the Computer History Museum is hosting a celebratory event to acknowledge the significant impact Internet mail has had on global communications. The event, being held on Wednesday, October 25, 2006 at 6:30pm at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California will feature a tribute by Eric Allman entitled “The Past, Present and Future of Email” and a panel discussion entitled “Promoting Trust in the Internet” that will feature industry leaders from Cisco, Cloudmark, Commtouch and others. For more information on attending the event, please visit: http://www.25YearsofTrustedMessaging.com
“Email has played a significant role in computer history, forever changing the way we send and receive information worldwide,” said John Toole, executive director and CEO of the Computer History Museum. “Because the Computer History Museum is dedicated to the preservation and celebration of computing history, we are proud to be recognized with Sendmail’s 25 Years of Internet Mail event, honoring an important technological development and its worldwide impact on the human experience.”
Industry Leaders Recognized
Today at the 25 Years of Internet Mail celebration event, Sendmail also announced the recipients of its inaugural Innovation Awards. The awards illustrate the dramatic impact that Sendmail users from across the globe have made to Internet communications and security. Of note, awards were given to BT (formerly British Telecom) for their “breakthrough in content inspection gateways”, TPC.int for using the Sendmail MTA to deliver the first Internet-based paging/FAX solution, and Tim Martin for SMTP Authentication, the predominant Internet authentication method in use today. These awards illustrate the impact that Sendmail users have made on the Internet. (see related release dated October 25th, 2006). |