Strategy
Meeting the Information Challenge (part 3)

The NET-TEL Vision

NET-TEL has always strived to produce high reliability "best of breed" products backed up by high quality support and a very approachable and responsive management team. This combination of reliability, commitment, stability, integrity and quality has earned us an enviable reputation amongst those businesses that have made the time to get to know us and our extensive product set.

We operate in a fast moving, highly competitive, business critical market that has recently "come of age" and is now seeing many new players entering the market in an attempt to exploit it. Products are emerging which have tremendous "demonstration appeal" but which, in the course of day-to-day use, end up being more "glitz" than function, or lack sound ergonomics.

NET-TEL's Route400 product set is a mature, reliable, high integrity, multi-cultural, scalable messaging system encompassing multi-platform clients, servers, API/command line, gateways and administrative/ backbone support tools, with the strength of delivering a native X.400 messaging service through to the desktop or mobile user without compromising reachability and interoperability with (and between) Internet, Fax and proprietary mail systems.

Access to, and use of, the Internet (primarily e-mail and the World Wide Web) and Collaborative/GroupWare/ Workflow tools and applications have now matured to the extent that they can be widely deployed, delivering genuine business benefit. The market is moving from the IT to the Information Age, and with it NET-TEL is expanding its core business deliverables from Electronic Messaging, Directory and EDI support products through to Universal Information Servers and Clients.

In defining our near term product development roadmap we have identified the key market forces and technologies that are currently in play and defined an innovative, flexible and scalable solution based around enhancements and additions to existing Route400/500 products, adding extreme value whilst maintaining our existing customer's flexibility and investment.

Our goal has been to define the ultimate server and client for today's market, whilst bearing in mind likely developments in the future. These Universal Information Servers and Clients are described in greater detail below.

NET-TEL's Universal Information Server

diagram
  • continued excellence as a native X.400 based messaging server, supporting:
    • inter-personal
    • process-process
    • EDI
    • Collaborative/GroupWare and
    • Workflow
    applications, with gateways (connectors) to cc:Mail, MS-Mail, Lotus Notes and Fax systems
  • tight integration with the Microsoft (Windows NT Server/Workstation 4.0+) operating system environment as a native 32-bit, logo qualifying set of server services in addition to continued availability and enhancement across a broad range of UNIX platforms
  • close integration of "Internet Mail" (SMTP/MIME, ESMTP, S/MIME, Notary, ...) support, as a gateway (connector) function evolving to a dual native X.400/Internet messaging server
  • addition of Web access ("WebMail") and POP3/IMAP4 connectors
  • integration with Microsoft desktop/mobile systems through provision of MAPI/SPI for client access
  • positioning as a universal messaging server with an active and intelligent message store supporting client access from any:
    • X.400
    • Internet
    • Web
    • MAPI enabled (client) application
    providing access to the same message store regardless of (differing) access protocol(s)
  • X.500 (1993) Directory Server, including support for LDAP, and provision of "Internet Directory" support, if this diverges from X.500
  • coexistence and integration with market leading Web and FTP Servers (specifically Microsoft and Netscape) enabling:
    • in-house information publishing with (security) access controls
    • proxy servers to control and increase the efficiency of access to external information
    • external information publishing with access controls and the provision of secured eCommerce servers
    and providing user choice
  • integration of a USENET "Internet News" newsgroup server providing controlled access to external newsgroups and secured in-house discussion forums (based on the threaded discussion NNTP model)
  • integration of external and internal "news feeds" and news/discussion groups with shared folders within the messaging server, providing:
    • tight integration with the "messaging clients" which may be X.400, Internet or Web based
    • added Collaborative/GroupWare support through provision of internal and external (global) discussion forums which users can read or participate in
  • support for Group and Resource Scheduling through provision of IETF calsch server functionality to support any open scheduling client
  • enhanced security through a combination of:
    • client/user validation
    • SSL/SET for eCommerce and Web forms
    • policing of security labelling to prevent leakage of protected information and documents
    • server-server validation and transfer encryption, enabling secured routing
    • Message Origin Authentication checks at each MTA
In combination, a fully configured NET-TEL Universal Information Server (UIS) provides secure, high quality of service and tightly integrated support for the needs of:
  • Electronic Messaging, regardless of protocol
  • World Wide Web / Information Publishing
  • Electronic Commerce (EDI & eCommerce)
  • Directories
  • Collaborative/GroupWare Applications
NET-TEL's Universal Information Client

diagram
  • continued excellence as a native X.400 based messaging client (and set of APIs and Command Line Tools) to support:
    • inter-personal
    • process-process
    • EDI
    • Collaborative/GroupWare
    • Workflow
    applications, with seamless access to gateways (connectors) to Internet, cc:Mail, MS-Mail, Lotus Notes and Fax systems
  • tight integration with the Microsoft (Windows 95+, NT Workstation 4.0+) desktop as a native 32-bit, logo qualifying, MAPI/SPI, OLE client
  • server and protocol independence through support for a variety of SPIs, allowing the client to operate as a powerful rules-based:
    • Internet Mail client
    • X.400 Messaging client
    • Lotus Notes or Microsoft Exchange Server client
    • Fax system
  • enhancement of address book support to allow LDAP lookups via Internet or X.500 based directories
  • URL proxy support providing tight integration with the users preferred web/ftp browser (specifically Microsoft and Netscape)
  • in-place browser activation using OLE
  • access to shared server-based folders providing support for Collaborative/GroupWare discussion/news forums and document/procedure libraries
  • addition of robust end-to-end security support, including:
    • encryption and decryption of messages or individual attachments
    • digital signature and signature verification of messages or individual attachments
    • message originator authentication
    • non-repudiation of message transfer or transaction
delivering a robust, high-integrity, high-performance integrated NET-TEL Windows based Universal Information Client supporting the needs of:
  • Electronic Messaging, regardless of protocol
  • Collaborative/GroupWare Applications, including discussion/news forums
  • Information and Directory access
  • Electronic Commerce (EDI, and eCommerce via web browsers)


Back to Part 2: Market Forces
Forward to Part 4: NET-TEL's Product Road Map


NET-TEL Home Copyright © 1998-2007 NET-TEL Computer Systems Ltd