I am pleased to let everyone know that Atmail will be exhibiting at CeBIT Australia from the 20th to the 22nd of May 2008.

CeBIT Australia is the leading Information & Communications Technology (ICT) event for the business marketplace in Australia.

This will be our 5th year exhibiting and look forward to meeting new and existing clients in person. If you are going to be there, please drop by and say “G’Day”

Atmail will be demonstrating many features and benefits of @Mail, including the Webmail Client and the @MailServer Appliance, we will also be launching a surprising new product at CeBIT - stay tuned!

We are pleased to announce that we are increasing the default amount of storage offered on both of our hardware appliances. We are upgrading our Pro Appliance from 500G to 1T storage (this is two 1T drives in a mirrored RAID setup).

The Base Appliance will now have 500G storage (up from 250G and also in a mirrored RAID setup). This will not affect the retail cost of the appliance. Please visit our appliance page for more details.

In addition a new Dual Backup Mirror appliance is available as a new product. A combination of either the Base or Pro model used for mission critical environments that require a hot-standby appliance with all users and messages configured in a backup mirror.

After careful consideration, we have decided to rename the core team and company from CalaCode to: AtMail.

This change reflects our central focus, which is the @Mail software, and is intended to unify our image, matching the team which creates @Mail with the software itself (phonetically).

In the future, we may drop the “@” symbol from the product name. Any clients wishing to weigh in on this decision are encouraged to do so in the comments section below.

After four months of rigorous development and testing, @Mail v5.3 is now available! The PHP version of @Mail is now more than one year old and has matured nicely. We have added a number of new features and feel this is our greatest version yet.

@Mail 5.3 will include:

• Support for SQLite database backend (Webmail Client mode only)
• Improved email address parsing (comma bug resolved)
• Improved parsing of embedded emails. @Mail will now recurse through layers of embedded emails and extract the content of them all.
• Support for ms-tnef (winmail.dat) attachments. Requires the tnef program installed on your server.
• New Plugin framework added
• Improved filtering of control characters that break the AJAX/XUL interfaces
• Resolved bug where wrong From address sometimes shown.
• Advanced FF interface now supports Start Page at login
• Improved filename detection for attachments
• Default date format as set in Webadmin is now applied properly to new users
• iPhone is no longer redirected to the WAP login page as it can handle regular simple interface
• Having an ampersand (&) in your Display Name will no longer break the Adv FF interface when you login
• Email tabs in advanced interfaces now display certain characters in subject text correctly (not as html entities)
• Webadmin can now sort User list by LastLogin field
• Improved HTML > Text conversion when replying/forwarding HTML messages in text mode on AJAX interface
• Improved support for spaces in folder names - no longer breaks XUL next/prev button

You can view the full change log here

Screenshots of some new features:

iCal Support

The latest release of @Mail supports the iCal standard for exporting Calendar data created via @Mail

Calendar data created via Webmail can be exported into iCal and used by Outlook, Apple iCal, other standard clients

This is the first step for a complete iCal sync utility

UTF8 Support

@Mail now supports full UTF-8 folder support , allowing folders to be created with international characters and different languages via the Webmail interface.

UTF-7 IMAP support is included for folders encoded on remote IMAP servers - Bringing complete internationalization support for folder-names

Vista Support WebSync Utility

The 5.3 build of @Mail brings Windows Vista support for the Websync utility for Outlook 2007 and 2003.

The Websync utility is a plugin for Outlook which uses MAPI, and can communicate to the @Mail server via HTTP/HTTPS. Full synchronization support is enabled, including Shared address-book and Calendar events.

Clients can download the new Websync utility, or follow the links within the @Mail Webmail interface to obtain. Existing users upgrading will need to remove the previous Websync and re-install.

Multiple Calendar Support

The latest build supports multiple calendars, allowing a user to create a new calendar and share this between local users of the @Mail system.

This extends the traditional “Personal” and “Shared” calendars of @Mail, allowing the user to create their own and optionally share an entire calendar with other users

Other Calendar enhancements include the ability to define the alert time of an event and the free/busy status of an event

If you are an existing customer, we welcome you to download the latest version from our client portal. If you have been evaluating @Mail or just looking for the first time, you can find the most detailed pricing (including a 10% discount until April 4th) on our online order page.

We always welcome your feedback and questions!

It’s been a couple of months now since the successful release of @Mail 5.2 which marked quite a milestone in our PHP port with it becoming a very mature and feature rich Webmail system. However we’ve continued our hard work and managed to further improve @Mail with quite a few bug fixes and feature improvements to make @Mail still even better!

In preparation for the release of @Mail 5.3 we have decided to make a Beta available to our existing clients. We’ve found it very stable in our testing and would encourage our clients to visit the Client Portal and download the beta tarball and check it out.

Included in the new release is Websync support for Outlook 2007/2003 running under Vista. Download the latest Websync utility at: http://atmail.com/websync/websync-53.exe

@Mail 5.3 will include:

• Support for SQLite database backend (Webmail Client mode only)
• Improved email address parsing (comma bug resolved)
• Improved parsing of embedded emails. @Mail will now recurse through layers of embedded emails and extract the content of them all.
• Support for ms-tnef (winmail.dat) attachments. Requires the tnef program installed on your server.
• New Plugin framework added
• Improved support for multi-server setups using a central config (via a plugin)
• Improved filtering of control characters that break the AJAX/XUL interfaces
• Resolved bug where wrong From address sometimes shown.
• Advanced FF interface now supports Start Page at login
• Improved filename detection for attachments
• Default date format as set in Webadmin is now applied properly to new users
• iPhone is no longer redirected to the WAP login page as it can handle regular simple interface
• Having an ampersand (&) in your Display Name will no longer break the Adv FF interface when you login
• Email tabs in advanced interfaces now display certain characters in subject text correctly (not as html entities)
• Webadmin can now sort User list by LastLogin field
• Improved HTML > Text conversion when replying/forwarding HTML messages in text mode on AJAX interface
• Improved support for spaces in folder names - no longer breaks XUL next/prev button
• an more…

A full change-log will be available upon final release of @Mail 5.3

So if you are an existing client and have the time please check it out and give us your feedback - we want to make @Mail the best Webmail and Messaging platform available!

The @Mail development team have been hard at work designing a new “Simple” interface for the Webmail client.

We are aiming to consolidate the interfaces of @Mail into two, one “Advanced” interface that works for both IE and Firefox, and a new optimized simple interface.

Both interfaces will utilize the same backend code for requests, Ajax functions, and XML structure for messages, address-book and calendar data. Just presented with a different interface, depending on the utilization of the Webmail ( Business users can use the Advanced interface with more features, and home users the simple interface may be better suited )

Attached are some mock screenshots of the new “optimized” simple interface - Feedback is welcome!

Message listing page

Readmail panel

In addition, we have created a new concept for a login-page of @Mail, that combines the entire interface with the login-page as a floating DIV. Users can simply login to their account with ease, and the interface fades into their mailbox listing without any page reloads or redirects.

View the new login page online, and you can access any sample account at demo.atmail.com

Create a user account on the demo page, then click the new login page to access that account. Otherwise login to the demo account demo_evf8@demo.atmail.com, password demo using the new login page above.

That’s the latest from the development team of @Mail, you can look forward to some new additions to @Mail in Feb/March 08!

An article in Linux.com ( linked below ) tells the story of a pre-bubble CRM company that took the jump to Linux, after being a Microsoft shop. They were previously using the .NET platform, but disappointed by the licensing restrictions and the overall cost of the product, they looked for a more scalable solution.

And then, there was light. From LAMP, an implementation composed of Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP.

This is but one of the multitudes of of stories on what looks to be a recent, slow exodus from closed-source, expensive solutions, to cheaper open-source alternatives. And one of the many that echo the same sentiment as others have - that it is not merely a case of what’s more financially scalable, but what allows them more flexibility with what they do as well.

Naysayers in the past who have decried the OSS movement’s unreliability - after all, how can you trust software that allows its insides to be seen and poked at - are now gradually going with the chorus of affirmations. The nature of how the source code is treated has ceased to be an obstacle, rather a positive remark about how robust development in the open-source side can be. To paraphrase a quote, a thousand people can’t be wrong.

What’s particularly wonderful about the movement is it is composed of people who actively care about the product they are contributing to. Being both in the consumer and development part of the product creates a far more active dynamic than the alternative. Developers using the product not just as a testbed, but as a part of the production process (as we do here in @Mail) tends to stir some very interesting questions. What do I want to see in the next release? What could I remove? What could be improved?

I certainly hope that the trend continues, and I can see it happening. And I can see it shaping methods of collaboration, development, and the future of how business in the World Wide Web is done.

CRM company dumps Microsoft, remakes itself with LAMP

Sun recently bought out all MySQL stock for $ 800 million dollars - much to “boos” and “yays” in equal amounts. After all, this was hardly expected by many considering Sun’s stellar (no pun intended) support for PostgreSQL.

However, looking back at Sun’s history with OpenOffice.org, I think this is a good thing. Historically, they have been known to be a leading proponent and contributor to open source software; Stallman himself has been quoted as saying that they provide more to the free software community than any other company. And while MySQL has a huge community and developer-base, a bit of help can’t be that bad.

One of the questions asked was if the purchase will affect the development of MySQL for other platforms. Kaj Arnö, the VP of Community Relations, assures us:

“Absolutely not. MySQL is still being managed by the same people, and the charter is still the same. There is no need for reducing the set of platforms or languages. It only makes sense for us to continue to support defacto Web development standards like LAMP, as well as emerging ones like Ruby and Eclipse. This deal is about addition, not subtraction.”

Of course, there is the question of what they can gain from it. Well, a few possibilities:

As we all are aware, MySQL pushes LAMP - an implementation that has been immensely popular, and widely used. Perhaps they aim to gain from LAMP’s userbase and coverage. Perhaps it is a grab for leverage against competing products (IIS/MSSQL, for one). Or perhaps they are looking for integration of MySQL with their existing products.

We can really only speculate for the moment. But one thing’s for sure - I myself will be watching with great anticipation.

Sun Announces Agreement to Acquire MySQL

The online demo site of @Mail, demo.atmail.com will undergo a purge of local accounts at the demo domains.
If you have been using the online demo as an active email account using atmail.com, atmail.org or atmail.nl, this account will be permanently purged 7th Feb 2008. The online demo was never intended as an active email service, only a demo of the @Mail interface.

If you have an active account, two options are available:

1. Login to Webmail and divert your email to another account. Webmail > Settings > Email Diversion. This diversion will be kept in place after the demo account has been purged.
2. Signup for a Hosted @Mail account, and let us host your own domain or previous email account on the paid platform.

The demo site no longer accepts signup at the previous domains, only demo.atmail.com for testing purposes . If you have a previous account you need to access click the external-login page, and login with your full email account by 7th Feb 2008.

Atmail is proud to open the new Research & Development Centre, based in Peregian Beach, Sunshine Coast, Australia.

Due to the expansion of the company, the new office is setup as a creative R&D environment for @Mail, with the intention to further refine the software and release cutting edge new products. The office will house new PHP programmers, usability and design guru’s, open-source developers for Linux, and all things related to @Mail.

The new office in Peregian Beach is 150 meters away from world-class surfing beaches, ocean views from the office, surrounded by Noosa National park, located in the “Sunshine coast” with one of the highest sunshine readings in the world per year, and only 20 minutes from an International airport.

With the opening of the new office we have open positions available for PHP/Linux developers, and a new position for an overseas student to work in Australia on an @Mail R&D project for a 6-12 month period. We are seeking some of the best local and international developers to join our team to live and work in one of the most beautiful environments in Australia.

A map of the new office is below, we are excited to open the expansion of the new R&D centre!