Everyone.net Embraces Web Services

There's a slick new Web 2.0 AJAX-based GUI, and also new services that the better back end makes possible.

by Alex Goldman ISP-Planet Managing Editor [November 7, 2007]

We've been writing about San Jose, Calif.-based Everyone.net for some time now. The company claims to manage 3 million mailboxes, of which 750,000 were added in the past year (a number we had been given previously, 30 million, appears to have included free mailboxes—the 3 million are all paid).

The company is conducting its "Web Mail 2.0 Press Tour" to discuss the incorporation of AJAX and a large number of other new features into its products. "Our focus is on business, but we're growing in consumer, too," says Michael Rose, everyone.net's CEO.

Upgrades to the interface will be familiar to fans of Google's Gmail and Microsoft Outlook:

• A preview pane
• Adjustable window panes
• Multiple nested folders
• A search function
• Autosave every minute the user has webmail open
• iCalc-compliant calendar

But this is more than an interface upgrade. The introduction of web services allows everyone.net to offer services like remote backup, collaboration, and mobile messaging.

Anti-spam and anti-virus filtering are also an important part of the offering.

The system can push e-mail to all of the most popular PDAs (Treos, iPhones, and, of course, Blackberries).

Web services also enable the company to work with third party service providers, such as RPost , a provider registered e-mail, announced early last month. "It provides an encrypted receipt that constitutes legal proof of delivery," says Rose, "a service that the post office charges three to five dollars for."

The entire interface can be own-branded, a key advantage to ISPs considering outsourcing, but who do not wish to put another company's name on their offering.

Future services
The company's archiving solution is very basic at the moment but next year it plans to offer full Sarbanes-Oxley compliant archiving. SOX requires that the stored e-mails be impervious to tampering once stored.

Also due for Q1 2008 is Microsoft Exchange functionality, an offering clearly driven by the popularity of Exchange with small business customers.

"There's a heightened push by ISPs for SMB business," says Rose. "Comcast is advertising heavily in Bay Area and smaller providers are following suit."

— End