Strategy
Meeting the Information Challenge (part 1)

The need for an Information Strategy

The past decade has presented significant opportunities and challenges to businesses large and small, and to individuals, whether operating on behalf of their company or personally. Information Technologies, primarily personal computers and "the Internet"/Intranets, have become pervasive within commerce and government, and more recently (and dramatically) in the home. The dominant driver to the proliferation and appeal of these technologies continues to be access to, and the ability to generate, organise, manipulate and communicate information, and to effect transactions. A reliable and secure communications infrastructure is essential to this process.

Information (knowledge) has always been an asset, and a source of competitive advantage and power. Communications networks simultaneously increase and undermine the value of information, offering the opportunity for rapid dissemination to a wide (or narrow) audience whilst increasing the vulnerability of data to abuse and security breaches. The networks and information transport mechanisms an organisation deploys, or relies on, are an essential element of the integrity of its information and intellectual property.

For information to retain its value it must be reliable, timely, available to the "right" audience, presented in a manner which is easily understood, and usable. A wide variety of options exist to support these demands, ranging from bespoke solutions and private networks through fully standards-based and openly accessible. All form part of an Information Strategy and are essential to the competitive positioning and well being of modern enterprises.

An Information Strategy comprises an organisation's policies towards:
  • internal and external information publishing and access, and the technologies used to support these
  • Information Management and Security, including:
    • allowable information flows into, within and from the enterprise
    • the use of encryption, authentication and integrity checking tools
  • Information Retention (archiving and deletion)

NET-TEL's Information Product Set
NET-TEL is a successful, growing British software company whose core business continues to be the design, development and marketing of a comprehensive range of electronic messaging and electronic commerce support products under the Route400 brand. In response to the evolutionary and revolutionary market forces described, our product range is evolving into an Information Product Set, providing solutions to the needs of Collaborative/GroupWare, Workflow and Internet focused users through a combination of in-house extensions to our existing products, and the integration and supply or recommendation of external "best of breed" products.

NET-TEL was founded in 1982 to develop real-time communications software for network operators and telecommunications equipment suppliers that did not have the specialist in-house skills needed to design and develop high-performance software for advanced applications.

In 1986 NET-TEL's founders recognised that electronic messaging would become a key information technology. They decided to apply the skills and experience that NET-TEL had built up in networking and telecommunications to developing software based on open-systems interconnection and the then-emerging international X.400 messaging standards. They also made the decision to develop global products rather than to continue developing custom software for other companies. These decisions created the foundation for NET-TEL's significant and continuing expansion and its ongoing profitable position as the leading European developer of X.400 messaging products.

The first Route400 products were released in 1988. These generated immediate interest among public sector organisations in Europe and elsewhere which were beginning to issue requests for proposals for messaging solutions based on X.400. Since then, the range of software available under the Route400 brand has grown steadily to become a truly comprehensive family of products encompassing the widest range of platforms in the industry, and has been further supplemented with X.500 directory based products marketed under the Route500 brand.

The Route400 and Route500 product set today offers mature, reliable, high-interoperability, standards-conformant (mobile) client, server, API/command line, gateway and administration support products available, according to product, on one or more of the following platforms:
  • Windows NT, Windows 95 and Windows 3.1/3.11
  • UNIX
    • DG Aviion DG/UX
    • Digital Alpha OSF/1
    • HP-UX
    • IBM AIX
    • ICL TeamServer -I and -S
    • SCO OpenServer/OpenDesktop
    • SCO UnixWare
    • Stratus FTX on XA/R and Continuum
    • Sun Solaris (SPARC and x86)
    • Tandem NonStop-UX B series
    • Unisys System V
  • OS/2 v3 Warp and Warp Connect
  • MS-DOS 5.0 or later
  • Macintosh System 7 or later
with the flexibility to operate over a broad range of interconnect technologies including:
  • the Internet and TCP/IP based Intranets, using RFC 1006, via LAN, leased line, ISDN or dial-up/wireless/satellite connections, including APS, GSM, Cellular and Mobitex
  • public and private X.25 networks
  • LAN CLNS
  • any shared-file network operating system (eg Novell, NFS, Windows for Workgroups)
providing reachability to and from users based on:
  • Route400 and other X.400 capable systems
  • "Internet Mail", including SMTP/MIME capable systems
  • Microsoft Mail
  • Microsoft Exchange/Outlook/Outlook Express
  • Lotus cc:Mail
  • Lotus Notes
  • Fax
with the added Route400 benefits of:
  • an intelligent messaging backbone that can convert the format of attachments to suit the favoured format of each recipient on a per attachment basis, and generate usable faxes by auto-converting attachments to readable fax content
  • a Secure MTA Gateway that can act as a Messaging and Virus Firewall, auto-virus checking any or all in- and out-bound messages dependent on system administrator defined rules
  • universal delivery and read notifications
  • exemplary (mixed) character (set) handling and support
  • better attachment support
  • least/lower cost in- and out-bound fax routing
  • universal time-bound message delivery and/or validity
  • a reliable and high integrity Messaging Service
  • worldwide ability to establish a Service Level Agreement with a national or multi-country X.400 Service Provider
All these characteristics, taken together, deliver a richness of service and intelligence of functionality that has justifiably earned NET-TEL's Route400 Message Servers the accolade:
"NET-TEL has the most intelligent message store in the X.400 world."
Ferris Research, "Implementing X.400 Backbones"
Additional NET-TEL product differentiators include our overall design expertise, experience, focus, maturity, conformance to standards, wide interoperability and stability (from a company, staff and product perspective) delivering a high service level in all circumstances.

NET-TEL's expanding customer base includes industrial, commercial and government organisations and Route400 products also form the basis for a range of product and service deliveries from a growing number of OEM partners. A sample of our customer list includes:
  • European Commission
  • UK National Health Service
  • Ministry of Education, Belgium
  • ROSNET, Russia
  • Syntegra
  • Dutch Ministry of Transport
  • Carrefour, France
  • UK Department of Social Security
  • UK Department of Health
  • National Savings Bank, Hungary
  • UK Department of Trade & Industry
  • TSAI, Spanish ADMD
  • Girobank, Hungary
  • UK Foreign & Commonwealth Office
  • British Aerospace
  • London, Milan & Copenhagen Stock Exchanges
  • Deutsche Bank
  • Greek Parliament
  • UMI, Ursa Major International ADMDs


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