The e-mail provider is adding archiving and other products in order to add value for small business customers.

by Alex Goldman ISP-Planet Managing Editor [October 20, 2008]

The last time Timothy Eades visited Jupitermedia's New York office, he was vice president of sales and marketing for Sana Security, talking to us about a relationship with EarthLink.

Today, he's the CEO of San Jose, Calif.-based e-mail provider Everyone.net and he's adding services to the company's product line in order to grow its business.

"We surveyed our customers," says Eades. Customers wanted the basic services: archiving, e-mail to fax, and so on.

The key to services is making them simple and easy to use. "They're designed for people, and built for business," says Eades.

ISPs want to offer services because without them, the SMB customer can change ISPs rapidly and often chooses a provider based purely on price. "Services increase stickiness and make the barriers to switching greater," says Eades.

SMB customers now understand the value of SaaS services. They don't want to have their own tech staff. In some cases, the founder is troubleshooting technology issues. Eades says he once talked to a chef who was also running his restaurant's network.

The suite of integrated products delivers single sign on and an easy to use interface, both of which are now expected by customers.

Eades expects rapid growth once the services are online. He says that demand for hosted archiving could grow at 56 percent per year, and storage at close to that, according to a Radicati Group report issued in July of 2007.

Everyone.net was an early adopter of push e-mail solutions for handheld devices, and it is building on that initiative.

Competition
In business services, Google is just beginning to build business e-mail services, Eades says. At the other end, he says, Microsoft is trying to bypass its own Exchange hosters and sell directly to small business.

As for customer support, "independent ISPs cannot get Google or Microsoft on the phone. People expect a phone tree or to be booted overseas and are surprised when we answer the phone."

ISPs have an advantage over the LEC or MSO in this area. "The phone and cable companies are not known for their customer service," says Eades.

The competition may be skimping on security as well. "Yahoo has 228 million mailboxes, including Sarah Palin's."

Nevertheless, everyone.net needs to build an impressive data center to compete, and Eades says he's done so, using NetApp cluster 3070 heads and DS-14 mark 4 shelves.

It's a data center upgrade and it also saves power. "We've gone from 30 to 40 NetApp appliances to 10. With this upgrade, we'll be reducing our kilowatt use down by 87 to 89 percent. That's going from 35 kilowatts of consumption to 4 kilowatts," Eades says.

There's software in this project too, and Eades credits key employees with achieving great things. "Our engineering team is spectacular," he says.

In order to help ISPs sell the product, the company has built generic marketing materials.

The goal of the system is to build a self service site where customers can go to upgrade. The ISP wants the upsell and everyone.net wants to make it easy.

one_business
The one_business suite was announced last week.

Services offered are:

• one_archive: Email storage and retrieval with automatic message retention up to 36 months
  
  
• one_storage: Secure online storage for files of any type
  
  
• one_sync: Synchronization of calendar and contact list with Microsoft Outlook
  
  
• one_mobile: Synchronization of email, calendar, and contact list with mobile devices
  
  
• Email and phone support offered in all service plans

Pricing and availaibility
The one_business suite is available now, both direct from everyone.net and through its channel partners. Prices to the channel were not announced.

Direct pricing ranges from $5 to $14 per month, depending on the package and options selected.

—End