Death By Email Blog

The Internet's 40th Anniversary - Today

"That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind."  -  First moon mission.

"Mr. Watson -- come here -- I want to see you."  -  First phone call.

“What hath God wrought!”  -  First telegraph message.

And, on October 29, 1969, what was the first word communicated from one computer to another computer across a long network? 

This word was communicated from a small unknown lab at UCLA in Los Angeles to the Stanford Research Institute in Palo Alto, California.  The computers were the size of a small apartment and had less processing power than your BlackBerry.  Yet, the word that will stand up to all those other phrases was .....

"Lo"

Actually, the word was supposed to be "Login," but one of the machines crashed in the middle of the communication.  So much for critical moments.  The bug was fixed within minutes and the word "Login" was finished.

It is actually hard for us to remember -- or to imagine -- that in those days, computers were not interconnected.  We did not have a digital telephone network.  (Remember the acoustic coupler?)  Computers were generally not even interactive.  Most communication was via cards, paper tape, and a few terminals.  So, sending a message from one machine to another was pretty radical.

Charley Kline, who was at UCLA, and Bill Duvall, his SRI counterpart, gave a special presentation at the Computer Museum to mark the 40th anniversary.  They have a video that describes the moment and shows pictures of the equipment like what they used.

It wasn't exactly and email message.  As a matter of fact, I doubt that they even imagined email at the time.  But, this is the anniversary of a fundamental building block of what makes email possible.  Happy Anniversary. 

Gartner Sued For $1.7B Over Email Archiving Magic Quadrant

Tomorrow, a $1.7-billion complaint filed by ZL Technologies against leading research analyst firm Gartner, Inc. (ZL Technologies Inc. v. Gartner Group Inc. and Carolyn DiCenzo) goes in front of the U.S. District Court in San Jose, CA.  It alleges that Gartner was spreading libelous reports that failed to position ZL Technologies as a leader in the Magic Quadrant report.  Specifically, the complaint alleges: defamation; trade libel; false advertising; unfair competition; and negligent interference with prospective economic advantage.

Gartner is asking for a dismissal of the suit on First Amendment grounds.

Gartner, Inc.'s Magic Quadrant may be the single most influential evaluation for enterprise buyers.  Companies have been made and reportedly broken based on their position as market leader in a 2 dimensional graphical matrix as to who is a visionary and who has the best ability to execute.  The email archiving magic quadrant has shown Symantec as a leader for years.

"ZL claims that Gartner’s use of their proprietary “Magic Quadrant” is misleading and favors large vendors with large sales and marketing budgets over smaller innovators such as ZL that have developed higher performing products," reads a letter from Kon Leong, President & CEO of ZL Technologies, published on the ZL web site.

Some of the points made by Leong include:

• Fair Disclosure on Conflicts of Interest – Gartner generates its revenues from payments made by the same vendors whose products it evaluates.
• Fair Disclosure on Evaluation Scores – ... Gartner (should be) required to disclose more data in its evaluation process and disclose component scores ... Currently, there is zero disclosure, which can lead to arbitrary placement, with no recourse and no basis for appeal.
• Better Oversight – Gartner currently has an employee act as ombudsman to handle disagreements. The conflict of interest is self-evident in the way ZL’s concerns were summarily dismissed with little supporting evidence.

“Since 2005, Gartner has placed the ZL in the bottom portions of the lower left-hand quadrant in the MQ Reports, as Niche Player (the “MQ Placements”). These MQ Placements were, and are, derogatory because they are understood by technology purchasers as a warning, by Gartner, that ZL and the ZL Products are not good choices for enterprise email archive applications,” reads the complaint.  (Full text of complaint.)

While the First Amendment does allow anyone to express their opinions, the First Amendment does not protect a firm from libel suits.  However, libel laws protect the subjects of the speech from false statements.  It is not libel if it is the truth, even if the truth hurts.  So, could the court case come down to simply stating that when I express my opinion it is by definition true because it is my opinion?  Can ZL show that Gartner had a process that did not use true statements when the scores used to build the Magic Quadrant are cloaked in secrecy.

“It would be nice to know, of the vendors rated, how much money did they spend on Gartner? That factor is very similar to what the SEC enforced on Wall Street ratings agencies," Leond said to Software Development Times. "This way the reader can say, 'I can factor that into my assessment.'"

Whatever happens, ZL Technologies is raising an important issue about the power of rating agencies and the transparency of their operations.  I hope that we get to see some of the inside workings.

In full disclosure, InBoxer is an email archiving product that has never been selected to be reviewed by Gartner.  Our company also does not subscribe to any Gartner services.

Can You Trust Your Email to Web-based Mail Services?

BusinessWeek just published Arik Hesseldahl article, "Web-Based E-Mail: Businesses Beware." The subtitle: "Microsoft, Google, Yahoo!, and lots of others offer these free or low-cost services, but if there's a snafu or e-mails with essential information are lost, you're likely to be out of luck."

As reported in this blog, there are many stories of companies and individuals losing all of their email history and important records.  One major ISP reportedly lost the emails of 14,000 customers, and offered them a $50 credit as an apology.  Would $50 make up for your lost email history?

(I should point out that I was quoted twice in the article and that BusinessWeek specifically mentioned InBoxer and the DeathByEmail blog.  What did I say?  ----  If e-mail is crucial for your business, no matter how small, then it's too important to entrust to a free Web-mail service, says Roger Matus, CEO of Inboxer, an e-mail archiving gear company, who also blogs frequently on e-mail issues at deathbyemail.com. E-mail accounts, he says, aren't only for communication but are now virtual filing cabinets containing important documents, contact information, sales leads, and other crucial business information. "Everything important that happens to a company these days, happens in e-mail," he says. "It's like your crown jewels, so you want to be careful in handing them over to someone else.)

My advice to you, and to everyone that uses a hosted email service, download a copy of your messages to your local hard disk as a back-up.  Free applications, like Mozilla Thunderbird, make it easy to download and keep messages.  Like me, you may prefer the web based interface for convenience and fast search.  But, back up your data to your local disk in case of catastrophe.  It won't cost you a cent.

Office 2010 is Coming

Last week, I mentioned that Microsoft Exchange 2010 is rumored to be released next month.  Well, it looks like  Microsoft Office 2010 with Microsoft Outlook 2010 is about to come.  A new Microsoft web page previews the product and gives you a chance to sign up for the Microsoft Office 2010 beta.

A new feature that believe I believe was most needed is Conversation View.  Those of us who used Google Mail know that conversations that go back and forth are clustered in one place.  This capability is now part of Outlook 2010.  But, it goes a step further, with a couple of new features that are not in Google Mail:

• Clean Up Conversation removes all of the redundant replies.
• Ignore deletes the conversation and automatically deletes all new replies to the conversation.
• Single click action allows you to categories all messages in the conversation, such as make it personal, and gives the same categorization to all new replies.

Another new feature is QuickSteps.  The video shows a number of them: "To Manager," "Forward: FYI," "Meeting Reply," "Team E-Mail: Reply & Delete," and "Team Meeting."  But, users can define their own one click short-cuts.

The video talks about support for MailTips, which I discussed earlier in the blog.  It is intended as a way to eliminate some common mistakes.  For example, a MailTip may remind a sender that he is about to send a large document to an external domain -- just in case it is a proprietary document or one too large for the mail server.

It looks as if 2010 will be an excellent year for new productivity products.

By the way, if you have not moved to Windows 7, I really recommend it.  I have been using it for months and it really is the product that Vista should have been.

"Most impressive phone we’ve used since the iPhone"

The next 30 days are looking to be exciting for those of us looking for a Smartphone to read wireless email that is not on AT&T.  Yes, I know that people who love their iPhone cannot believe that we would read our email on anything else.  But, some of us are in the Verizon Wireless world.  And, it looks like an incredible line-up of phones is happening:

• Windows Mobile devices
• Blackberry Storm 2
• Motorola Droid
• Palm Pre (next year)

If you are not following these devices, then you will have a lot of catching up to do as the commercials roll out.

Microsoft Windows Mobile 6.5 is probably the least exciting of the bunch.  (Sorry, Redmond.)   A collection of them have been shown in public with names like HTC Touch 2, LG GM730 and Samsung Omnia II.  They are running an updated version of the Microsoft Windows Mobile operating system.

The amazing thing is how excited we would have been about the new design and capabilities just two years ago.  But, the iPhone makes Windows Mobile look slow and unfriendly.  I could not believe that a stylus would be required for many functions and that there is a scroll bar on the right of the screen.  (It is now counter-intuitive to flick up to scroll down.)

"It's widely acknowledged by users, media, and even Steve Ballmer himself that Windows Mobile is in dire need of a ground-up revamp, and it's happening -- but not quite yet. That's Windows Mobile 7 you're looking for, and realistically, it's not going to be in your pocket for at least another year. That leaves Microsoft in a bit of a pickle: how do you facelift version 6.1 -- which is already a facelift of 6, which in turn was a facelift of 5 -- just enough to eke another year or two of life out of it? Is it even possible?," the Engadget blog reports.

I must confess that I once had a Windows Mobile device from a few generations ago.  I turned it back in for a Palm Treo.  So, I am not a fan and will not be getting one of these.

The RIM Blackberry Storm 2 is going to be more exciting, if you believe all of the reports.  It is a full-screen BlackBerry that is a vast improvement over the small screens that I had become used to.

"If you're a Verizon or Vodafone customer jonesing for a new touchscreen smartphone, you'll want to line up the day the BlackBerry Storm2 goes on sale and get one. Period.," exclaims the Crackberry web site in its extremely detailed review.

I currently use a BlackBerry because it is the best email device, in my opinion.  It is even easier than the iPhone (or, in my case, my iPod Touch) to go through mail quickly.  I think it is the best device for text email out there.

But, it falls apart with HTML mail and anything that requires a browser.  And, it would appear that the new BlackBerry does not improve on it.

"Web browsing isn't one of the Storm2's strong suits," reports PC Magazine.  "Its HTML browser renders desktop sites well, but slowly (even in 3G). It also streams audio and video but lacks Flash and two-finger zoom. Scrolling around Web pages felt jerky. Plus, the bottom icon bar was finicky; it didn't always appear on cue. Safari on iPhone, Android, and Opera Mobile all offer better mobile browsing experiences."

That leads me to something that I am getting excited about, the Motorola Droid.  I saw the first television commercials last night -- the so-called iDon't campaign.  The campaign is about all the things that the iPhone does not do. Click to watch the video:

So, what is the Motorola Droid? The reports say it is the name for a new smartphone running Google's Android operating system on Motorola hardware with the Verizon Wireless network.

It is clear that these powerhouse companies are planning to attack Apple head on.  It is hard to be more confrontational than the video on the right.

The very first reviews have been outstanding and, if correct, could make it an ideal wireless email device.  The first hands-report came from the Boy Genius Report web site.  They exclaim that it is the "most impressive phone we’ve used since the iPhone."  Here is a feature list from Boy Genius:

• It’s running Android 2.0. Duh.
• It’s thin. Just slightly thicker than an iPhone 3GS and the thinnest QWERTY-slider we’ve ever seen.
• It is the fastest Android device we’ve ever used. (It’s running a TI OMAP3430 processor)
• The feel of the device is very reminiscent of the OQO 02 model computer. Just smaller. It’s metal with a non-spring-assisted slide, very sturdy, and half soft-touch plastic.
• Awesome capacitive display. Plus it’s huge. Easily the best screen we’ve ever seen on an Android handset, and an amazing screen overall.
• The QWERTY keyboard is actually pretty usable and has a soft-touch rubberized finish. We’ve been told the keyboard design isn’t final on this unit, thus the two no-shows.
• Have we mentioned this phone flies? It’s the Android device to beat, and easily the most impressive. From what we’ve been told, Google had a direct hand in the Motorola Droid. Something to the point of almost dictating every move Motorola made when designing and making the phone. Interesting, huh?
• There’s a desktop cradle/charger that will ship with the Motorola Droid that we’ve been playing around with. It turns your Droid into a “multimedia station” and displays local weather, the time, etc.
• No one wants to listen, but it makes the CLIQ looks like a child’s toy (partly because it is, and partly because the Droid, even in its non-final form, is the most impressive phone we’ve used since the iPhone. It’s positively amazing).

I am looking foward to trying the mail integration based on Google software.  Will it be as good as the BlackBerry for email?

I do want to give a passing mention to the PalmPre.  The phone is impressive.  And, if it was on Verizon Wireless, I would have gotten it months ago.  But, it looks like these new devices will take the thunder out of the Palm.  (No, that was not intended to be a BlackBerry Storm pun.)

So, the next 30 days ought to be pretty exciting over at the Verizon Wireless store.  Which device, if any, interests you?

Exchange 2010 Launch Reported For November 9

"We are happy to announce that Exchange 2010 is Code Complete!  Our senior leadership team has signed off on the final code, and it has been sent to our early adopters for one final look before its public release. This Release to Manufacturing (RTM) milestone means we are on our way to general availability and the launch at Tech·Ed Europe 2009 (http://www.microsoft.com/europe/teched/) in early November," began the blog posting from Sumeeth Evans.

The long awaited release of Exchange 2010 appears to be coming to Tech-Ed Europe on November 9th in Berlin.  The beta has been out for many months.  But, this final version will be the first that many IT departments will look at.  Actually, given the slow pace of adoption, the release of Exchange 2010 probably means that many companies will finally move from Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2007 -- but that is another story.

The main benefits of Exchange 2010 are due to storage cost reductions and productivity features.

Exchange administrators "can archive Exchange data to cheaper DAS (direct-attached storage) rather than a more expensive SAN (storage area network). This will reduce email storage costs by up to 85 percent without sacrificing performance or reliability, according to Microsoft," reported AIIM Infonomics.

Email archiving companies, like mine at InBoxer, have been watching Exchange 2010 with great interest as the company touts archiving as one of the great new features.  But, as Bob Spurzem, director of product marketing at Mimosa, notes in his blog:

1. Exchange 2010 does not move the archive email off of the Exchange Server.
2. Exchange 2010 (as well as all previous versions of Exchange) does not perform single instance storage across all of its Stores.
3. Exchange 2010 does not manage the archive data with full retention and read-only access.

That means that for email archiving, electronic discovery, and content monitoring, a product like InBoxer Anti-Risk Appliance remains necessary. Exchange 2010 archiving is an ideal way to handle personal archives and to reduce the need for PST files.  It also enables lower cost storage.

(Tip of the hat to Email Tide.)

"Screw the shareholders!!’’

"Screw You.," typed Bank of America Board Member Thomas May  on January 15th to his friend and fellow Board Member Chad Gifford, during a teleconference among directors and executives.

"Unfortunately it’s screw the shareholders!!," was Gifford's retort.  The timing of the response may not have been the best.  The Bank just announced that the quarterly dividend to shareholders was being cut to just one cent from 32 cents.

"No trail," May replied to Gifford, it what apparently came as a reminder.  But, it was too late.  The email exchange was submitted to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo as part of ongoing investigations into the circumstances surrounding the Merrill deal.  (Wall Street Journal has the full text of the email exchange.)

The entire exchange shows a rare insight into the relationships between high level Board members.  But, it is now part of a current investigation into the Merrill deal.  Did these guys make an innocent off-hand remark?  Or did they know something about the deal that shareholders did not know about?  The investigation as to intent will now begin.

IBM Beats Google Prices for Hosted Email

Who would have thought it?  IBM is offering a product for less than Google.  IBM's new LotusLive iNotes is a comprehensive hosted email system with webmail, Outlook access, Notes access, calendaring and contacts.  It competes head-on with Google Apps for Enterprises.  (IBM Press Release)

How does it compare?  Google Apps for the enterprise is $50 per mailbox per year.  IBM's price is just $36 per mailbox per year.  That $14 can add up quickly for a decent sized organization.  Think of it, a 10,000 person enterprise would save $140,000.

One big difference that I have noticed is that LotusLive INotes comes with just 1GB of storage per user, while Google Apps paid version includes 25GB.  Additional storage is available and few users actually exceed 1GB.  (That is an interesting part of Google Apps pricing.  If even 10% of the users need a feature from the $50/year service, all users must upgrade.)

LotusLive iNotes is part of a suite of new LotusLive cloud-based services from IBM, including collaboration tools and web conferencing.  But, the company thinks that the best way to get attention and interest from enterprises is through email. 

"Email and other collaboration services are the right entry point for many companies to realize the promise of cloud computing, but only if clients feel confident they're getting business-grade service from a trusted leader in enterprise services," said Bob Picciano, General Manager, IBM Lotus Software. 

Do they have a chance of beating Google?  IBM is already the second largest provider of email software to business, behind Microsoft Exchange.  They already claim 18-million mailboxes under management by LotusLive.  (Funny -- my spelling checker turned it into Lotus Love.  Was that intentional?)

Now, to take on Google, IBM needs to find a way to be cool again.

City of Boston Posts Deleted Emails

The City of Boston, in the midst of a scandal over deleted emails, has taken "unprecedented step of posting the requested emails on the City's website."  These are said to be emails that of Michael Kineavy, an aid to the Boston mayor, that had been mysteriously missing.

Unfortunately, instead of posting the emails in an easily searchable file, all the emails are "printed" in PDF format without the meta data.

So far, the messages appear to be extremely boring, such as requests to move signs and to create fire lines.  If only the messages could be placed into the InBoxer Anti-Risk Appliance with automatic message classification, we would be able to quickly see what we want without wasting time.

You can see the PDF emails yourself at: http://www.cityofboston.gov/news/kineavy_messages.asp.

Change Your Email Password ... Now

More than 30,000 email accounts from Gmail, Hotmail, AOL, and Yahoo were hacked into over the past few days.   These email accounts are now reportedly sending out thousands of shopping sites.  These sites are fake and are intended to steal personal information from the visitors.  (RTE of Irelan)

This is how it works.  The spammer gets into your email account and starts sending out emails like the one shown on the left to contacts or just people that the spammer has on a list.  The email invites people to come to a special web site that you appear to have endorsed.  (Image from the Washington Post.)

If you go to the link in the email, you are taken to a web site.  You will find that the site has some incredible deals on electronics.  You may even say that the deal is too good to be true.  But, when you attempt to buy, you will learn that the only way to purchase is via wire transfer.  I do not know how many people would do this, but they might if they felt you endorsed the deal.

Amichai Shulman, a security expert with Imperva told the BBC that the high numbers of victims suggested that the scam was a key-logging attack. (The Telegraph)  This type of attack is made possible when malicious software, unwittingly installed on a computer after visiting infected sites, collects information about keystrokes, such as the user name and password for a web mail account, and then sends that data back to a hacker. 

I recommend that you do the following:  (1)  Don't respond to this email or one like it.  (2)  Check the SENT items folder in your mailbox to see if you have anything unexpected in it.  (3)  If you have any worry about your account -- change your password now.