Turnkey ASP Functionality for ISPs

Mirapoint claims its dedicated, proprietary, e-mail hardware and software package gives ISPs a cheap and easy way to provide premium messaging and hosting services.

by Alex Goldman Associate Editor, ISP-Planet [March 22, 2000]

In December, 1998, Mirapoint began shipping its specialized e-mail servers. At the time it was a minnow with $9 million in VC funding, and even with allies like Cisco, many believed its product was unsellable and its niche too small. Now it is strong and ambitious.

Our own Internet Product Watch describes Mirapoint's server as a high performance appliance. It's not cheap.

The pitch
In a new marketing ploy aimed at ISPs, Mirapoint claims that it can turn any ISP into an Application Service Provider (ASP). Of course, the application that it will enable you to serve is: messaging.

Mirapoint says that if you already have the e-mail infrastructure in place, you might as well profit from that infrastructure by adding premium services:

Service	Incremental Revenue	Incremental Cost	Incremental Profit
Basic POP e-mail	None; provided as basic service	Cost of e-mail server + sysadmin resources	No additional profit
IMAP (leave on server service)	$10 per mailbox each month	One time: $12.50 per 50MB	$10 per mailbox each month (with cost recovery in 1.25 months)
SSL encryption	$1 to $2 per mailbox each month	None (included with server)	$1 to $2 per mailbox each month
Virus scanning, spam protection, and optional content filtering	$2 to $3 per mailbox each month	One time $5000 cost for 5000 users	$2 or $3 per mailbox each month, with cost recovery in 2 or 4 weeks for 5000 users.

Mirapoint servers and routers
Of course, while Mirapoint servers are suited to this plan, others may not be. Mirapoint claims that freeware e-mail servers are not easily scalable, are complex and therefore require expensive technicians, and are not necessarily suited to premium services.

On the other hand, our review of open source, modular QMail notes one possible alternative (it's just software, and doesn't do everything that Mirapoint's hardware-and-software package does, but it's free).

Mirapoint also claims that many commercial e-mail systems, "such as products from Sun and Netscape," are slightly easier to maintain than freeware e-mail servers, because the companies provide customer support, but are no easier to upgrade.

In its white paper "ISP to ASP" Mirapoint claims, "whether you are deploying dedicated systems for business users or high-end Internet messaging platforms designed to host thousands of virtual domains, integrating Mirapoint will reduce the burden of integrating and maintaining third-party products or building freeware-based solutions." And since the software is part of the package, there are no per-user fees.

If you have many business customers, the system could be profitable for you.

Distributed domain management
Furthermore, if you are already doing web hosting, you may be interested in Mirapoint's delegated domain administration system, whereby you can offer several levels of service, depending on your clients' expertise:

• Shared Hosting Service (B2B) The service provider 'rents' a percentage of its e-mail server capacity to business customers. The business customer retains control for the mail administration of its proprietary domain as if it had its own messaging system.
• Dedicated Co-location Service (B2B) The service provider handles all set-up, maintenance and provisioning, and the business customer remotely controls its mail domain and user directory.
• Customer Premise Equipment Service (B2B) The service provider manages the service availability of a dedicated message server remotely, while the business customer has complete control of its mail administration and the location of its mail data.
• Business to Consumer (B2C) The service provider hosts thousands of web-based e-mail, IMAP or POP subscribers on one or more systems.

Availability
Packages are available now from Mirapoint's resellers. The premium bundle (including the router itself, LDAP routing and authentication, the POP/IMAP proxy, and anti-virus filtering) is priced at $27,425.

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