I retired from personal blogging in July 2008.
But you can find me over at http://blog.xero.com.
Not a bad article in the InfoTech yesterday. Always risky with phone interviews.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3095826a28,00.html
Wellington software firm AfterMail was named “emerging company of the year” at the Hi-Tech awards in recognition of its e-mail archiving and retrieval solution. Since the collapse of US energy giant Enron, regulators in many countries have begun requiring companies to archive e-mail correspondence. This has spurred huge growth in the money spent on archiving e-mail, with some estimates suggesting this is growing 90 per cent a year.
“E-mail has moved from an informal person-to-person communication to a matter of corporate record,” says AfterMail chief executive Rod Drury. “I think that’s what’s enabled us to get so much traction so quickly.”
AfterMail’s software archives and sorts e-mails, then lets companies efficiently search through them. “We provide essentially a full data record for all your e-mail, but also unlock the value of the e-mail for the company. It allows a company to access company information.” For example, if a member of a sales team left a company, their replacement could pull up all the e-mails relating to a customer without sifting through an entire inbox. “It’s also helpful legally if you ever need to prove your innocence. It’s hard to prove you haven’t seen something. Martha Stewart would love to show that she didn’t get that stock tip,” says Mr Drury.
The software is designed to appeal to more than just industrial and financial companies. Mr Drury lists Te Papa and the Environment Ministry as customers. “Everybody uses e-mail. It’s the most horizontal application in the world,” he says.
“Software’s a great opportunity to create real value and bring it back into the country.”
AfterMail was founded in October 2003 and Mr Drury says the company managed to break even in its first year. It has ruled out listing in the near future. The company has 10 employees in Wellington and 25 sales reps around the world. It intends to open an office in Britain soon.
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