New Zealand-based NetWin offers a scalable e-mail solution with a highly customizable webmail interface.

by Jeff Goldman [May 11, 2005]

NetWin was founded in 1995 by Chris Pugmire, now the company's CEO as well as the head of its ongoing development team. NetWin's first product was DNews, one of the first Internet news servers for NT. In 1997, the company entered the webmail market with DMail and DMailweb. "At that time, there was a real surge of interest in web interfaces for e-mail, so it was quite a good time for us," says Ralph Pugmire, Chris' brother and NetWin's Managing Director.

NetWin sales@netwinsite.com

In 2002, Pugmire says, they decided to go back to square one and do a complete rewrite of DMail, to be called SurgeMail. "In the earlier versions, we had three completely separate things—we had DPOP, a POP server; DMail, which was the SMTP side of it; and DMailweb, which was the web interface," he says. "With SurgeMail, because we were starting again from the ground up, the whole thing was much more integrated."

In 2003 and 2004, NetWin added outsourcing services, including e-mail hosting, remote installation, and remote management and monitoring. "We don't see that as a major part of our service, but it's a useful part because it brings us in closer contact with using our software—which is good for quality control," Pugmire says. "You see what the customers go through, and if you come across a rough corner somewhere, you get straight onto the developers—and they can't escape so easily from somebody who's in the company!"

Pugmire says about 14,000 systems worldwide are now running the company's software. About half of the licenses are for 100 users or less, and the other half are for 1,000 users or more. Of that second half, about ten percent are for 10,000 users or more. In terms of location, about 50 percent of sales are in the U.S., and the other 50 percent are scattered worldwide. "People often ask, 'What do you sell in New Zealand?' and our response is 'Practically nothing,' because there's practically nobody here—which is nice," he says.

Reasonable pricing
For ISPs, Pugmire says, two key selling points of SurgeMail are its scalability and its pricing structure—SurgeMail's prices start at $470 for a 100-user license, with an additional $100 fee to increase to 1,000 users, and $100 more to reach 10,000 users. "With SurgeMail, you can grow without unreasonable pain," he says.

Beyond SurgeMail, other key NetWin offerings include SurgeNews, a news server designed to minimize bandwidth usage—and DBabble, a private label instant messaging product. "Secure internal instant messaging is now becoming a requirement of modern business," Pugmire says. "They need something that gives them good access to associates, not to the general world—so an internal instant messaging server is more appropriate than a public instant messaging system such as MSN or ICQ."

Sales for the company are straightforward—purchases are made by download directly from the company's website. The full install can be downloaded and used for free for one month before registration is required. The download also includes an automatic migration tool to ease the transition to SurgeMail. "It lets you move from any other server, with zero downtime," Pugmire says.

In the recently-released SurgeMail 3.0, there are three major developments—improved spam filtering; a new groupware application that includes calendaring, photo sharing, and file sharing; and new management tools for both users and admins. "At the admin level, there's a variety of new reports, and a whole module of trend graphing," Pugmire says. "And at the user level, there are web interfaces for control of the anti-spam features and the mailing lists and aliases."

Optimized webmail
All administration of SurgeMail is handled through a web interface. Monthly usage reports, current status reports, and a "high use" delivery log analysis allow admins to examine usage and track individual accounts to eliminate spamming. Data can be logged by the hour, by the day, by the week, by the month, or by the year—and a wide range of events and statistics can be tracked. "It's extremely useful when you're watching for trends," Pugmire says.

NetWin WebMail is the company's webmail interface, which can be used either in combination with SurgeMail or with any other POP/IMAP/SMTP server. Two web interfaces are available—a low-bandwidth option for dialup connections, and a high-bandwidth version which replicates Outlook in appearance. All aspects of the interface are template-based, allowing an ISP to customize the look and feel completely to match the design of their site.

Customizability, Pugmire says, is key to all aspects of the solution—including flexibility for the ISP to adjust the look of the interface, as well as responsiveness on NetWin's part to customer requests for additional features or changes. "The customizable solution also includes support for different languages," he says.

These days, Pugmire says, about 10 to 15 percent of NetWin's customers are buying WebMail without SurgeMail. Five years ago, he says, about half of the customers would buy WebMail alone. "That's a change, but I think it's probably more of a market change than a change in what we're doing," he says. "At that time, there were still a lot of mail servers out which didn't include a web interface—whereas these days, most servers have a web interface, so there's less of a need to go to a third party for your webmail."

— End

Related articles:
	[April 25, 2005]	AOL Mail on the Web
	[July 21, 2003]	You Only Get One Chance to Choose a Dialer
	[Jan. 22, 2003]	E-Mail Does Make Money

Online resource:
	Webmail Directory
	Webmail Quick Reference Chart