Adam Dell's Message One tries to tame e-mail beast
By John Pletz
American-Statesman Staff
Monday, March 11, 2002
The best idea venture capitalist Adam Dell has invested in so far may turn out to be his own.
The younger brother of computer magnate Michael Dell, Dell hit upon an idea for a company a couple of years ago when he was setting up shop in New York City for his venture capital firm, Impact Venture Partners.
While he was trying to get e-mail access, Dell found himself tangled up in one of the thorniest problems in technology today: how to keep a handle on the unwieldy, sprawling beast that electronic messaging has become.
To his surprise, there wasn't a single product out there that allowed corporations to know how big their e-mail systems are, how they're performing and how they're used.
That's how Dell came up with the idea for Message One. In less than two years, the Austin-based startup created a simple-to-use solution that allows companies to monitor their e-mail systems in real time.
E-mail administrators can see every e-mail server on their network, whether it's across town or across the world, and instantly see how the servers are performing. From their computer screens, system administrators can see how quickly incoming e-mails are delivered to recipients and whether a server is nearing capacity -- before it goes down.
They can also compile an astonishing amount of data about a customer's e-mail use, which makes privacy -- and trust -- a core issue for the company.
"We did six months of research, talking with (chief information officers) about what kept them up at night," Dell said. "E-mail is a no-win proposition for them. They get nothing for it working, but there's hell to pay if it's down."
E-mail is arguably the most widely used computer application in business, found in almost every kind of company, from the highest of high-tech to the smallest mom-and-pop retailers. But in many ways, it's one of the least-understood applications.
Unlike expensive systems for accounting and sales or even the computer network itself, which were methodically designed, most e-mail systems are something of a hodgepodge.
E-mail entered many businesses through the back door. Often, executives who had e-mail at home wanted the tool at work. E-mail access usually was rolled out for a handful of people before being extended companywide.
Now, inexpensive e-mail servers are strung together, linked by little more than some software. Different features have been added, such as wireless capability with pager-like devices or personal digital assistants, further complicating matters.
Each piece of the e-mail puzzle has its own software and hardware, along with its own tools for monitoring and maintaining them. But there's no single tool that allows a company to see the whole system at once.
That's where Message One comes in.
"The (messaging-software makers) have their own diagnostic tools that track usage and spikes, but they're not the most flexible or scalable," said Robert Mahowald, an analyst at research firm IDC, who has been briefed by Message One. "It's not easy to get a networkwide view.
"This gives you one view of your e-mail universe worldwide. For the kind of audience (Message One is) aiming at, there are not a whole lot of options like it out there today."
Other network-management software vendors, such as Austin-based IBM Corp. subsidiary Tivoli Systems, offer information focused on e-mail as it relates to the company's broad computer network rather than information solely focused on the e-mail system itself.
A matter of trust
There are other vendors who offer more narrowly focused products that can show usage and traffic of e-mail servers, but they require additional software and/or hardware to be installed on each server.
"What distinguishes (Message One) is the way they're approaching the problem with an appliance product," said James Kobielus, an analyst with Burton Group, a technology research and consulting firm in Alexandria, Va. "It installs separate from the messaging server itself."
Message One's system uses software on a standard Intel-based server to monitor the entire network, using a company's existing Internet network.
The data is collected and transmitted via the Internet to Message One's data center. The information can be viewed by multiple IT members at the client company, who pull up the data on their Web browsers.
That means Message One ends up with a lot of data about a client's e-mail usage.
"If I'm a customer, I've got to trust them that they're not going to monkey around with this data," Kobielus said. "It's a different relationship than with a software vendor, who ships you some software and walks away."
But Message One insists that the primary concern of companies it's talked with is maintaining privacy of e-mail content, which Message One says it can't access.
Message One has a novel financial approach, as well. Instead of selling the servers and software outright, Message One sells the product as a service, charging customers monthly by "seat," or the number of computers on their networks. Message One installs the equipment and maintains it. The cost varies, depending on the size of the customer, but can run as high as $1 or more per month per seat, the company said.
'Something valuable'
Message One figures the number of large corporations that might want the product is in the thousands, representing a potential market worth about $1 billion.
The biggest challenge for Message One will be making its voice heard among the thousands of vendors selling software and hardware products to corporate IT managers.
"It could be a tough sale because they're going to talk to people who've already spent a lot of money on Microsoft Exchange, and here's one more thing they've got to spend money on," Mahowald said. "But (IT managers) are savvy enough to realize, however, if this will provide them something valuable and be willing to spend the money."
Message One also plans to offer companies the capability to monitor their anti-virus software to make sure all of their e-mail servers are using the same standards, such as new versions of software or patches.
Mahowald and Kobielus agree that Message One's greatest appeal might lie in simply giving IT managers reliable data on their messaging networks so they can better plan and budget resources.
"Enterprises are constantly looking at their traffic and rethinking network configuration, whether they need to bring in faster connections, larger servers," Kobielus said.
So far, the company has lined up eight customers, including semiconductor-services company DuPont Photomasks Inc., based in Round Rock, and Austin-based software maker Vignette Corp.
Until now, Message One has kept a low profile. Dell, who holds the title of chairman, founded the company in New York almost two years ago and in May moved to Austin.
Several top executives also had strong Austin ties, including Director of Product Marketing Samy Aboel-Nil, Vice President of Engineering Matt Howitt and board member Satin Mirchandani, a partner at Impact Ventures. All three worked at pcOrder.com, a spinoff of software maker Trilogy Software Inc., until Trilogy re-acquired pcOrder a year ago.
The company has $18 million in backing from venture capital firms RRE Ventures, Starvest Partners and Dell's own Impact Ventures. President and CEO Anne Perlman said the most recent round of funding, $10 million, should get the company through the next two years.
Analysts say it's too early to tell whether Message One will succeed. "But, clearly, the company is onto something," Kobielus said. "I saw their demo: It's slick. I was impressed with it. If they play their cards right, they could have something seriously successful."
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