In demand: Ilyas said that MailNow! is ideal for local SMEs who prefer to have an affordable, bare basic solution for business.
Malaysian tech company InternetNow is offering a standalone e-mail server in a market dominated by Cloud-based solutions.
Speaking at the launch of MailNow6! in Kuala Lumpur, the company’s managing director Ilyas Sapiyan said that latest the software is ideal for SMEs (small and medium enterprises) that are looking for an affordable solution.
Unlike many large companies operating with more than 1,000 employees, most SMEs only need an e-mail software without additional advanced features that often come bundled with popular services.
For example, popular Cloud-based e-mail hosting services from Microsoft and Google often come with often extra collaborative tools, productivity tools and storage.
The price plans can also be too costly for SMEs, he said. For example, the fees could go up to US$5,000 (RM20,000) annually for an organisation with 100 employees, according to Ilyas.
In contrast, MailNow! 6 costs between RM2,800 and RM7,240 for up 100 users. The price varies depending on what’s included such as firewall, antivirus and spam filtering.
The company also charges optional annual fees for updates that range between RM280 and RM2,312.
Despite Cloud-based solutions rapidly gaining popularity in the past five years, Ilyas claimed that more and more companies are moving back to in-house hosted e-mail server mainly due to security.
“Since the last release of MailNow!, the trend in e-mail has changed. There are more new products as well as threats now but until today our product is still very much in demand.”
“Despite new innovations such as social media and instant messaging, e-mail is still the number one business communication tool which also means more ,” said Ilyas.
Moreover, Ilyas pointed out that there is increasing evidence that e-mails are being intercepted by certain governmental and intelligence organisations globally.
Ilyas gave an example on a recent article by Computer Weekly which claimed that British intelligence agency GCHQ (Government Communications Headquarters) routinely intercepted and accessed e-mails of the British MPs, which was running on Microsoft Office 365 software suit.
The story also disclosed that by using Cloud-based Office 365, the parliamentary data and documents constantly go through Britain to Microsoft’s data centres in Dublin, Ireland.
While the MPs’ communications were protected from interception under the country’s law, it doesn’t protect communications that leave Britain’s borders, which was exploited by the intelligence agency.
“This is something that has made a lot of IT departments and personnel reconsider how secure the company data and e-mail is on the Cloud,” said Ilyas.
“With MailNow!, we provide an alternative to the Cloud-based solution whereby you have your own system on-premise, which is private and controlled in-house.”
While a large majority of its clients are still local SMEs, it also counts prominent businesses such as Bank of China (Malaysia), Diners Club International, G2000, Secure Parking, Fujitsu are among its clients.
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