By Nick Patience
Mirapoint Inc, the start-up that evangelizes the IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol) over the POP3 store-and-forward protocol, will launch its email systems in-a-box on Monday after a three month beta test involving seven companies. And it really is in a box. Menlo Park, California-based Mirapoint will sell you the hardware, an Intel Corp Pentium II-based machine with redundant-everything, the IMAP4-enabled messaging server and even throw in your choice of storage hardware. The system, both hardware and software – is all managed from a Java console that Mirapoint has written. The dedicated device is aimed at enterprise-scale customers and ISPs. The Mirapoint email software sits atop a BSD-based kernel and a single device can handle 3,500 simultaneous POP3 users or 1,750 IMAP4 users. In an ISP the company reckons a single device can support between 5,000 and 64,000 users depending on the mix of serious and casual users, the mix of protocols and the average size of message. Mirapoint’s VP marketing Cheena Srinivasan has run price comparisons through his spreadsheet of comparable systems from Sun Microsystems Inc – both hardware and software – and after taking 60% off Sun’s software list price and 35% of its hardware, believes Mirapoint can still undercut it by quite a bit, especially at the high-end. Srinivasan believes that the mania for all sorts of attachments, including video, PowerPoint slides and so on, with which most free email service have difficulty coping, is the reason a store- and-forward mechanism like POP3 will fade and IMAP will rise in popularity. IMAP is a mail drop protocol, as it leaves the message on the server, and only sends the header down to the client and does not work serially, like POP3. For instance, if a PowerPoint slide came early in a POP3 email download sequence, it might fill the mailbox, preventing later messages from being downloaded. While Mirapoint supports both protocols, as does every major email client, such as Microsoft Corp’s Outlook and Qualcomm Inc’s Eudora, Srinivasan believes IMAP will be the dominant email protocol within three years, quoting IDC numbers from a year ago. One market Mirapoint is exploring is that of ISPs offering to work as a corporation’s virtual MIS by placing the device on the corporate network and then remotely maintaining and monitoring the system. Companies with between 75 and around 300 users would be suitable for this kind of operation; any bigger than that and they should control the unit themselves, reckons Srinivasan. He says the real selling point of this device is the tight integration of the software. You can’t peel the onion, he says. The operating environment is inexorably linked to the email software and the storage control. The device comes in two versions. The MX100 costs $14,900 and comes with a 300 users POP/IMAP license, while the MX1000 costs $26,000 and comes with an unlimited license. They ship December 14. Mirapoint’s preferred storage supplier is a US distributor of Dublin, Ireland-based EuroLogic Systems, which offers an Ultra SCSI, RAID storage system. With 108 GB storage and 1,500 IMPS users with storage, Mirapoint would cost about $55,000 while a Sun 3500 with the same storage and users would cost about $70,000. Working with 40,000 POP subscribers and 108 GB storage Mirapoint the Sun system would cost about $240,000, reckons Srinivasan, while the Mirapoint server would still cost about $55,000.
