The modular mail system improves its collaboration and webmail features, and adds several other features you're not expecting to see here.

by Alex Goldman ISP-Planet Managing Editor [March 11, 2008]

Clavendon, North Somerset, UK-based messaging specialist Gordano recently announced Version 15 of its system. The Gordano Messaging Server (GMS) is a modular system offering a large number of features:

• webmail
• collaboration
• instant messaging
• anti-virus
• anti-spam
• firewall
• list server
• archiver
• mobile e-mail
• encrypted e-mail

The latest release concentrates on the webmail and collaboration modules, which have been updated with AJAX and is now fully brandable. For existing customers, says John Stanners, Gordano's managing director, the upgrade takes two to five minutes.

"The old webmail interface was Java-based," he says. "It was starting to look clunky in the age of Web 2.0. We threw away the interface and rewrote it from scratch, using all AJAX, no Java. Now it looks like a standard desktop client. If you walk around the office here, it's hard to tell who's using the desktop client and who's using webmail."

The webmail client has skins, which Gordano calls "themes". This makes the solution completely brandable. Stanners says that the interface is far more flexible than most. Of course, an ISP alter the colors, fonts, and add their own logo. But an ISP can also redo the interface, writing customized buttons.

Delve into the product, Stanners says, and you'll find an unexpected depth of features too. Set an appointment in the calendar, and the system can deliver two alarms for it, say a popup on the PC 15 minutes before it occurs, and an SMS message to your cell phone one hour in advance.

For ISPs, there's something Stanners calls "context switching" that allows support staff to take the position of the user and alter any settings the user may have made. "The purpose," he says, "is to repair settings if the user's done something silly and don't know how to sort it out themselves." Apparently, this is especially useful for corporate admins dealing with CEOs who are not tech savvy.

The future
Version 14 came out last year, so it's a new version of GMS about every year. The next update, version 15.01, due at the end of June, will add a few more features, such as the ability to invite others to meetings in the collaboration module.

Pricing and availability
Gordano GMS is available now. Gordano's prices are listed in popup windows on this page. Licenses above 2,000 users are available, but pricing for them is not disclosed.

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