Two more messaging and directory services firms have merged to form a new company. Canadian company Execmail Inc, based in Edmonton, Alberta, has merged with the UK’s Isode Ltd of Richmond, Surrey to form MessagingDirect Inc. Terms of the agreement were not revealed. The news comes a few days after the San Francisco-based messaging firm Peerlogic Inc announced its acquisition of ICL Plc’s i500 directory services unit on Monday.
Both firms have a complex history. Execmail was formed in 1995 as a developer of IMAP messaging clients and message stores, then called The Esys Corporation. It emerged from a three-year proof of concept period within services company Intergrated Systems Applications Corp. Its first product, an early internet mail product called ECSMail, evolved first into the Simeon messaging product and was subsequently renamed Execmail. MessagingDirect is expected to keep its Edmonton and Richmond offices, and another in Austin, Texas.
Isode was formed in 1992, originally as the not-for-profit Isode Consortium, developing internet/X.400 messaging and LDAP/X.500 directory services. It became a commercial operation, Isode Ltd, in 1996. Isode’s Directory Server and Message Switch, which run on Sun Unix and Windows NT platforms, have been sold mostly to OEMs, system integrators and service providers, including AT&T Co, Innosoft International Inc, Dr Materna GmbH and Siemens AG. But Isode also sold direct to customers such as Alcatel and British Telecommunications Plc.
The two companies had been working together as partners for several years. The combined message switch and store, directory server and messaging client technologies will be aimed at service companies wanting to use their extranet for communication and messaging based e-commerce. Electronic bill presentation, supply chain communication, customer call center services, secure medical records transfer and education transcriptions are among the target application areas, the company said.
A new software development kit, MD Builder, is for developers to embed mail enabling APIs into business applications. Silicon Graphics Inc has just announced availability of the MessagingDirect LDAP/X.500 enterprise directory software for its Irix operating system.
