In the pursuit of collaborative intelligence...

More spin from a new start up then with RISK written all over the product.

At least the established vendors have some customers ie a revenue stream, to protect and support current customers, what happens when the start up runs out of funding? This is not vendor FUD, Mailstore, Iwitness etc have already gone end of life and its customers are looking to do swap outs. You don't make a career in IT by asking the board for budgets for the same project twice!

Seriously, the latest Gartner report on archiving vendors reflects what is reality in the marketplace, ie uncontested market dominance and leadership from Veritas, some contenders on the horizon and no sign of AfterMail, even Ziplip made the shortlist (great name guys).

When customers look at a product they want reference customers, alliances and credibility. A mom and pop business in New Zealand is not where coprorates are putting their money (and careers), sorry guys, late to market with this. The UK operation has one guy on support, lets hope he doesn't go sick or on holiday then!

Archive Retrieve Analyse?, sounds a little like the KVS Store Manage Discover strapline.

Good luck in any head to head but I dont think you will be making many shortlists.

I look forward to seeing AfterMail impress a target client base whose preferred solution is one that gives them an edge

AfterMail was designed with and for the user first and many intangible benefits are acquired - to switch to simple English AfterMail addresses the issues of the IT manager, the knowledge manager, the risk manager and the company secretary in a clear, concise and current manner - AfterMail is so much more than Archive, Retrieve, Analyse - AterMail enables new management styles to evolve that are alert based using email and other contemporary messaging architectures that are popular, just for example and not restrixted to - it can provide accelerated learning in an organisation, AI enhancements and self-service accessibility to CRM systems - it is so much more than a data storage solution, it also reduces storage requirements by an even greater factor up to 80% reduction using single instance storage of items - as AfterMail states: intelligent archiving.

I strongly suggest you evaluate AfterMail to be sure - if youd like me to organise this please just ask.

Ed, I don't think you're listening to the guy above. And actually customers don't care that much about a little edge your product gives them, they're more concerned about not getting sacked when you go broke and they get blamed for buying your product. And usually the last thing they want for LONG TERM storage and archiving is Windows platform and SQL server! Legato have come a cropper with this objection, so why do you think you'll fare any better?

You need more than one or two employees dotted around the world in order to convince that you're viable and that customers should buy your product.

You're too late into the market to be able to catch up unless you've got at least $25m VC ready to kick in to produce the kind of marketing and support push you need in this market, otherwise you're just not going to be around in a couple of years.

Sorry, but that's the truth of it plain and simple.

I appreciate your comments and I did think on Sunday when I posted the response that I should say more, I'd just got back to Paris from Japan where I was on my honeymoon so not quite in work mode but now back at my desk in UK...

One should be straight forward rather than pussy-foot around these conversations so lets begin... how many companies are there with 5000+ employees? I guess not as many companies as those who employ 500. Do they have the same needs? If we step back from the marketing hype and look at companies that trade successfully with software developers such as JetBrains, do they have $25m in funding, I doubt it - but they do make superb software - I myself use their ReSharper tool and love it, I do not demand they blitz me with marketing hype - in fact what influenced my decision was Laurent Kempé's endless raving about the tool.

Let me share another story as well: before my wedding on the 30th April and ensuing honeymoon I was frantically zooming around Paris the day before on the back of Xavier Sequier's moped to do some last minute shopping. Xavier has launched some major artists and has his own gallery in Paris: http://www.xaviersequier.com . Here's the interesting bit - I needed some decent walking trainers for the Japan honeymoon adventure - Xavier explained that there were 2 shops, one shop was above ground with a high pedestrian count (people walking past the shop window) but was selling brand name products and at recommended retail prices, the other shop was below ground in Forum des Halles and had a few brand names but was certainly cheaper. We went to the cheaper shop - I got a pair of trainers there that were on 50% discount special offer and were absolutely ideal for the job - they weren't Nike, Reebok or whatever - they were Columbia but were absolutely perfect; I did try on about 8 different pairs before making my decision to be 100% sure including the brand name designs.

The point of the story is that if you bother to try things, if you know what you are buying then the likelihood of getting fired, or getting sore feet in my case is pretty slim.

Why do companies need to raise vast sums to tell the market they can - perhaps to sell to people who buy blind - it is just not necessary, the world needs to stop playing consumerism politics and we all need to start buying responsibly - going for brand is not the answer, doing our job and undertaking due diligence is.

If you want to talk about source code in escrow, then come present a deal to us and we can see if that is acceptable. I understand some people also prefer 'big iron' to Microsoft SQL Server so give us a purchase order and we'll deliver AfterMail using DB2. AfterMail works with any ANSI SQL compliant database server so no issue there.

Sure reputation and credibility are valuable but as I work for an organisation that markets disruptive technologies I'm used to this type of comment from the marketplace - it's hard to shake, and a popular criticism with things that are new - but new does not last for long once people believe - the question is who do you trust, tell me and I'll go demonstrate AfterMail to them, then you can buy it at a 25% premium from them instead of me.