SmarterMail 11.x BETA Now Available

January 24, 2013 by 1 Comment

We’re excited to announce the BETA of the next version of our popular Windows mail server: SmarterMail 11.x. Over the last few major releases we focused on providing an incredibly powerful and user friendly Web interface that users would enjoy.  With this latest release, we kept the same look and appearance but rewrote the underlying architecture with the latest Internet technologies to dramatically improve the speed, reduce the size and increase compatibility with all the latest Internet browsers and tablets.

In addition, SmarterMail 11.x brings several new features, server side optimizations and fixes that continues to make SmarterMail compatible with the latest Internet trends.  As with all releases, we worked closely with customers and partners and while we couldn’t incorporate everyone’s ideas into this release, we prioritized our users’ wants to create a new version of SmarterMail that we think you’ll really like.

So let’s take a look at what’s new…

Tremendous Performance Increases

We spent a great deal of time benchmarking SmarterMail and then making changes to increase the level of performance across the board. In many instances we’ve seen increases of 70% or more in the speed and responsiveness of the SmarterMail 11.x interface. We’ve also seen huge decreases in memory and CPU usage, even under extremely heavy loads. All of this means that the product runs much quicker and much more efficiently than previous versions. Some of the changes we’ve made include:

  • Re-factored and completely re-wrote many areas of the web interface to reduce the amount of JavaScript code, CSS and HTML, making the entire web interface much faster, much more responsive and much lighter weight.
  • CSS files have been converted to LESS, making stylesheets much smaller and more efficient.
  • The button bars were re-factored to be lighter weight controls.
  • The context menus were re-factored to be lighter weight controls.
  • The date pickers were re-factored to be lighter weight controls.
  • The tree view controls were re-factored to be lighter weight controls.
  • Greatly increased the performance of the Web interface.
  • Replaced the message editor control with a more lightweight control.
  • SmarterMail Service memory has been drastically reduced using SpamAssasin.

As we mentioned in a blog post late last year, we feel efficiency IS a product feature, and SmarterMail 11.x really proves that point.

Simple Customization of the Webmail Interface

personalizationSmarterMail 11.x introduces a much simpler way for users to customize the look and feel of their webmail experience. Now, rather than having to access system files to create custom styles, users can simply override existing SmarterMail styles with their own variables or, more simply, by modifying the overall color scheme of the primary, secondary and hyperlink colors. Users can even drastically revise the look of the webmail interface. For example, by moving the navigation icons to a horizontal position versus their default vertical position. Of course, if the Domain Admin prefers the defaults, customization at the user level can be disabled, thereby preserving branding and corporate identity.

Significant Improvements to Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync

Note-2-Calendar_smCustomers using the Exchange ActiveSync (EAS) add-on enjoy the industry standard in syncing technologies for all mobile devices and will be ready for the next version of Microsoft Outlook for Windows that’s coming in Office 2013. With SmarterMail 11.x we’ve made some significant changes in how SmarterMail integrates EAS, including better handling of the most popular devices from Samsung, the Galaxy S III and Galaxy Note II, and seamless integration with their native email clients.

Changes to how SmarterTools products work with add-ons are often only available with major upgrades due to the agreements we have with our vendors and partners. Customers who stay current with Upgrade Protection are able to take full advantage of these changes and modifications, not to mention receive full version upgrades at no additional cost. In addition, with SmarterTools, you can reinstate your Upgrade Protection at any time and still receive a discount. And unlike our competitors, SmarterTools doesn’t force customers to purchase each incremental upgrade that’s available when reinstating Upgrade Protection.

IPv6 Now Available

With the dwindling availability of IPv4 addresses, more and more hosting companies and service providers are moving towards utilizing IPv6 addresses. In addition, there will come a point where businesses of all shapes and sizes need to begin using IPv6 addresses as well. SmarterMail 11.x is here to help ease that transition. In fact, implementation of IPv6 with SmarterMail 11.x is just as simple as IPv4 – there’s no learning curve, no hassles and essentially the same functionality is available for IPv6 addresses as for legacy IPs. End users won’t even be able to tell the difference!

Greater Calendar Control

new_calendar In SmarterMail 10.x we greatly increased the functionality of our calendaring, and with SmarterMail 11.x we’re continuing that trend. In this latest version, users can not only set the default view for their calendars in the Web interface (either daily, weekly, monthly or all appointment views) but users can also automatically clean out old calendar entries. Domain or System Administrators can also default the auto-clean feature for calendars, making it an ideal solution for those admins who want to keep their mail servers manageable and running as smoothly as possible.

spell_checker

Improved Spell Checking

No one likes to send emails with spelling errors. With SmarterMail 11.x we completely revised how spell checking works, greatly increasing the accuracy and adding in grammar support. In addition, the new spell checking ignores things like URLs and email addresses and users can select an option to force spell checking before their email is actually sent, which should help with those awkward misspellings and grammar mistakes. You can also add your own words to your own dictionary to further customize and simplify your communications.

contact_pictures

Personalize Your Contacts

With the growth in popularity of social networks, people are used to see whom they’re talking to when typing up messages. SmarterMail 11.x allows users to add pictures to their contacts, thereby putting a face to a name, as it were, when typing up emails or using the included live chat. Contact pictures will even carry over to third-party live chat clients like Adium or Pidgin so users always see the person they’re communicating with, regardless of medium. In addition, ActiveSync and CardDAV will synchronize contacts with your choice of Third-party applications.

New Features for System Administrators

As if the incredible performance increases won’t make their jobs easier enough, we’ve also included several new features, tools and improvements for System Administrators. Some of these include the ability to utilize an abuse detection rule that allows blocking of IP addresses that exceed a set number of authentication failures over a variety of protocols, the ability to delete IP address that no longer exist right from the IP address bindings page and the implementation of the UIDPlus extension for IMAP. System administrators can even search log files written to the MRS\App_Data\Logs folder from within the management interface and much more.

17 Different Spell-check Dictionaries Included

In addition to the improved spell checking, SmarterMail also includes dictionaries for 17 different languages. The languages supported include:

  • English (US+UK Combined) – DEFAULT
  • English (US), (Australia), (Canada), (UK)
  • French
  • German/German (Switzerland)
  • Greek
  • Hungarian
  • Italian
  • Norwegian
  • Polish
  • Portuguese/Portuguese (Brazil)
  • Russian
  • Spanish

Greater Support for International Customers

SmarterMail is a truly international product. With customers in well over 120 different countries, support for languages other than English is a priority. In addition, as SmarterMail’s adoption across the globe continues to rise, support for non-Western character sets is also essential. With SmarterMail 11.x we’ve not only included support for right-to-left languages in our Web interface, but we’ve also gone through the entire product and greatly simplified our language strings to make things much easier for automated translations and for customers who create their own translation files.

Is that it?

Of course not! SmarterMail 11.x has many more features and improvements. You’ll find them in the release notes we’ll post in the SmarterMail 11.x BETA forum, but here are a few more that might be of interest:

  • A new content filter action was added for flagging messages and setting their priority.
  • Print preview now includes a list of attachments, perfect for regulatory compliance.
  • Users can now set start dates and end dates for their auto-responders.
  • Status messages and tip text now drops down from the top of the page and no longer disrupts page flow.
  • Language strings have been simplified so that they are much easier to translate.
  • In the webmail interface, the message grid now adds a color to the subject of unread messages to better distinguish them from messages that have already been read.
  • The ability for SmarterMail to detect missing attachments when they should be present. For example, when a message contains the word “attachment” but no files are attached or the subject is empty.

Getting started with the BETA

To get your hands on the BETA simply visit the SmarterTools BETA release forum, where you’ll see how to:

  • Sign up for the BETA
  • Get a special BETA license key
  • Download the latest BETA release (we update it regularly)
  • Communicate with other BETA testers and the SmarterTools development team
  • Stay up-to-date on the latest release note and BETA news

Sign up for the BETA

Filed under SmarterMail, SmarterTools Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Google’s Winter of Discontent

December 19, 2012 by 3 Comments

Source: Pocket Now

Source: Pocket Now

Late last week, Google announced that, as part of its “Winter cleaning,” they would be eliminating, or “closing”, some the less popular features from their free products and services. Examples of these include the ability to create calendar events via SMS or to check your calendar via SMS.  And who knew about Punchd, an Android app that keeps loyalty punch cards on your smartphone? Apparently not many people as it is getting axed as well.

Source: iMore

Source: iMore

However, some other features that they’re eliminating are a bit more surprising. The one getting the most attention is Google Sync, Google’s implementation of Microsoft’s Exchange ActiveSync for syncing Google Mail, Calendar and Contacts. EAS is the premier syncing technology for mobile devices that run Apple’s iOS and Microsoft’s Windows Phone 8. Microsoft even added EAS support for Outlook 13, the update to their popular desktop email client. While it’s true Google is only “closing” Google Sync for new users of their free mail service after January 4, 2013, it will still cause a lot of headaches for a lot of people. They also state that, with their implementation of IMAP for syncing mail and CalDAV and CardDAV for syncing calendars and contacts, that users of their free mail service won’t really be affected.

Source: The Verge

Source: The Verge

There’s just one problem with that line of reasoning: Microsoft’s Windows Phone 8 doesn’t support CalDAV or CardDAV as it relies solely on EAS for calendar and contact syncing. Therefore, anyone who purchases a Windows phone after Google’s Winter cleaning is completed won’t be able to sync their phones with their free Gmail accounts – well, at least not their Google calendars or contacts. As a result, many in the tech community are projecting that this is an escalation of the platform wars surrounding Microsoft and Google. In addition, it’s clear that Microsoft may have been taken by surprise at the Google’s revelation and is doing whatever they can to spin people from Gmail to Outlook.com, their own paid email service.

This is all extremely entertaining for those of us in the mail server business. While the big guys all slug it out, pointing people away from free services and funnelling them toward paid services, our products become even more important parts of the discussion. For example, when looking at the paid options from Microsoft and Google, SmarterMail’s price point really comes into its own, even with the Exchange ActiveSync add-on factored in.

As an example, let’s use a 15 employee business, which is the sweet spot for both Google and Microsoft. Below is a pricing matrix comparing Outlook.com’s price with Google’s Apps for Business paid service, and SmarterMail’s Enterprise licensing alongside. The numbers speak for themselves.

Outlook.com
$6/user/month		 Google Apps
$50/user/year		 SmarterMail
Enterprise
Monthly Fee $90.00 $62.50 N/A
Yearly Fee $1350.00 $750.00 $499.00
EAS Add-on N/A N/A $199.00
Yearly Total $1350.00 $750.00 $698.00

What this doesn’t factor in is that, with SmarterMail (or any SmarterTools product), yearly renewals of upgrade protection are extremely discounted – up to a 60% savings. So, year 2 would look like this:

Outlook.com
$6/user/month		 Google Apps
$50/user/year		 SmarterMail
Enterprise
Monthly Fee $90.00 $62.50 N/A
Yearly Fee $1350.00 $750.00 $199.60
EAS Add-on N/A N/A $199.00
Yearly Total $1350.00 $750.00 $398.60

That means SmarterMail Enterprise, with EAS, is almost half of the cost of Google Apps for Business. When you start adding employees, those savings become even more apparent as SmarterMail’s overall cost doesn’t increase until you hit 25 employees and need to increase your EAS subscriptions. And even if you don’t need EAS for syncing your Apple or Android devices, let’s say you’re a die-hard Windows fan and will cling to your HTC 8 or Nokia Lumia 920 until end of time, SmarterMail can accommodate you as well. That’s because SmarterMail natively supports IMAP, CalDAV and CardDAV so you can still get enterprise-level mail service for an even greater discounted price. Then there are the other things that come included: anti-spam and anti virus that keep mail servers, and users, secure; instant messaging and live chat, even when using external clients; shared contacts and calendars; industry-leading webmail interface, and much more.

So, go ahead, guys. Keep doing what you’re doing. We’ll sit on the sidelines with our popcorn and watch how things unfold…and we’ll just keep building a fantastic line of products that match and some ways exceed your offerings, but at a fraction of the cost.

Filed under SmarterTools, Technology Reviews Tagged with , , , , , , ,

Welcome Windows 8, Microsoft Surface, and the Future

October 26, 2012 by 1 Comment

Microsoft is releasing Windows 8 this week, their latest desktop operating system, as well as the Microsof Surface, their first tablet computer. This will be closely followed with the next versions of Office, their mobile platform and even Xbox advancements and improvements. All of these releases signal a significant change for Microsoft, one that, as experts and analysts have discussed at great length, will either make or break Microsoft moving forward.

As a software developer that specializes in Windows technologies, we couldn’t be more excited for these changes. We pride ourselves on staying up-to-date with technology and in ensuring our products work across as many platforms as possible. We do this so that customers who stay current with their software, either by keeping their upgrade protection current or by reinstating expired versions, can reap the benefits of the work we put into each release.

So what did we have to do?

Windows 8 presented its fair share of issues. If changes to their primary desktop operating system wasn’t enough, we also have the new Surface tablet to deal with as well as the recent release of Windows Server 2012. Therefore, it wasn’t a simple matter of just making our standard adjustments and releasing new versions.

The first challenge was that the security levels in Windows Server 2012 are much higher than in previous Windows server versions. This fact meant we needed to focus more on ensuring our installations didn’t throw odd security exceptions for administrators. Therefore, we needed a bit more finesse and attention to how our products install and how they interact with both our installers and the operating system in general.

Another issue was dealing with changes in Internet Explorer 10. Microsoft changed their Web browser just as much as they changed their operating system. While it was easy to make all of our products work by running IE 10 in compatibility mode, this in not the best solution. Therefore, we had to make changes to our interface as well as the inner workings of all 3 products in order to run them natively in IE 10.

Another challenge was Exchange ActiveSync. Windows 8 includes an email client, a calendar application and contact system within the OS itself. Windows Mail provides a user with a few options, one of which is Exchange ActiveSync. We had to re-work our EAS implementation to accommodate this as we noticed that the default applications tended to continually request updates rather than request updates on a specific interval. This caused problems with connections and impacted server utilization.  We made changes so this is no longer an issue.

Finally, we take pride in ensuring that all of our products work “right out of the box.” That means that we include a default Web server with each installation so that customers can get their applications up and running as quickly as possible. Getting that default Web server to install and run correctly under both Server 2012 and Windows 8 presented a unique set of problems that required an extensive amount of time to revise and test. While we were at it, we updated the Web server to be more robust, stable and faster.  Keep in mind, the internal Web server is still not intended to be a production Web server like Internet Information Server (IIS), but we had to make the adjustments to make it easy for customers to begin using our products.

All in all, we’re always up for a challenge as it helps keep us on our toes. We are excited to see how Microsoft’s new operating systems, not to mention their foray into tablet computing, are received and how they will help keep Microsoft on the cutting edge of personal and business computing.

All that being said, what are your impressions with Microsoft’s products or our integration? We’re always interested to hear your opinions, so comment away..

Filed under SmarterMail, SmarterStats, SmarterTools, SmarterTrack Tagged with , , , , , , , , ,

Road Testing the iPad – Part 2

March 30, 2012 by 3 Comments

What a great trip so far! WHD.global was a fantastic conference and we got to meet with a number of customers and partners. For the few days the conference was running, the city of Rust, Germany, became a small town full of true computer and hosting geeks. Definitely our type of people! Interestingly enough, a local Rust resident remarked that they would be glad when the conference was over so that they could get their WiFi back… That should be a good indication of how we took over the town!

As I’m still traveling through Europe, I’ve had plenty of opportunity to further evaluate the iPad as a replacement for a standard laptop computer and road testing its effectiveness in that capacity.

Observations on the iPad for Business

  • Right off the bat, I needed to use LogMeIn… into a 27-inch iMac with the incredible resolution of 2560×1440.
  • I can’t discuss the new iPad without mentioning the resolution and display. On a normal iPad, you need to zoom in and out constantly to work on documents, read websites, etc., but this is no longer necessary with the new high-resolution iPad display. Word documents, spreadsheets, image files and websites are all completely legible and unbelievably crisp and clear. I can honestly say there is a clear business benefit to the new iPad because of the improved resolution and display.
  • I have an Android phone and have constant issues with our standard Microsoft RAS VPN server. However, with the iPad and with the iPhones I’ve had, there is never an issue. I’m not sure how this continues to be a problem for Gingerbread devices, but it’s a shame.
  • Speaking of issues with Android and Microsoft compatibility, we use NT authentication to protect our development sites, internal reporting servers, etc. Working with this authentication schema is also a challenge for Gingerbread devices, although it seems that BETA versions of Firefox work around this on Android. By comparison, the standard Safari browser on iOS works flawlessly.
  • I did hit one snag working on the iPad. It’s not a hardware issue, but more of a software one. Many of our corporate documents are in Dropbox. Some of our Word and Excel documents are password protected as they contain sensitive information. Unfortunately, the Dropbox viewer on iOS doesn’t support this level of security and neither does Quick Office for the iPad. Therefore, I had to contact the office to have some documents and information sent to me instead. There is another app that may work (Documents to Go), but I have not tested it to see if it has a similar limitation.
  • Another thing I noticed, although it’s not a limitation of the iPad so much as it is a call to action for website owners and their designers: To prepare for customer and partner meetings, I review their websites and other materials in order to better understand their businesses. Unfortunately, I found that nearly 50% of the sites were not able to handle the browser on the iPad very well. Areas where pull downs were being used on their sites would not work, making it nearly impossible to read those sections if there wasn’t an alternative navigation scheme in place.
  • Our Exchange ActiveSync and iOS integration is awesome, but I get some pretty largeHTML emails from time to time that I have to review and provide feedback on, etc. Unfortunately, when you reply to emails like that, the iPad carries the HTML over to the reply and slows down the compose window. In some cases, this butchers the entire message. I wish there was a way to reply and strip the HTML to prevent this from happening.
  • As good as our Exchange ActiveSync implementation is, there isn’t a method to create folders in mail on the iPad. When I work with a new partner, I normally create a folder and move communication into the new folder. I can’t do that using the iOS mail client. However, our webmail interface (which works on the iPad) and our new mobile interface coming in SmarterMail 10 (which we are currently ALPHA testing on our production servers) DOES allow you to create folders and move messages into them.

That’s just a little bit of what I’ve learned so far. There have been a number of benefits from a consumption standpoint that I might discuss in my next post, including things like integration with my Plex media servers at home and using Photostream throughout the trip.

All-in-all, the iPad has really worked out well no matter which country we’re in or the connections we use. However, the overall impression, while positive, leaves me feeling a bit lost without the power and flexibility of my computers. We’ll see if that dissipates over time.

Filed under SmarterTools, Technology Reviews Tagged with , , , ,

Happy Holidays from SmarterTools

November 14, 2011 by 8 Comments

Holiday banner with holly and snowflakes
It’s time for us to spread some holiday cheer, and this year we’re pleased to welcome the participation of Commtouch and Microsoft, two great partners, to help make your holidays that much brighter.

What do you get?

From now until January 5, 2012, when you purchase a new SmarterMail Enterprise license or upgrade an existing SmarterMail Professional license to a current SmarterMail Enterprise you will receive all premium add-ons for FREE*:

  1. Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync (up to 100 mailboxes)

    Up to a $499 value*

  2. Commtouch Zero-hour Antivirus

    Up to a $699 value*

  3. Commtouch Premium Antispam

    Up to a $699 value*

That means you can save up to $1,900.00*, plus save yourself valuable time and reduce management headaches when using these three fantastic premium add-ons with your new purchase or upgrade.

NOTE: With such a great deal, it obviously can’t last forever. The availability of free add-ons is based on demand, as we have been given a limited number of licenses from our third-party partners to give away. So ACT NOW to take advantage of this fantastic holiday offer!

But wait…what about SmarterMail 9.x?

SmarterMail 9.x is in BETA now  and once it’s fully released (which should be in just a few short weeks), you’ll get SmarterMail 9.x for free, plus any other upgrades that occur within the 12-month upgrade protection period.

How do these add-ons help?

The combination of these add-ons will provide more features and functionality for your users while increasing the security and performance of your SmarterMail server.

Exchange ActiveSync (EAS)

Offers push technology for instant, two-way synching of calendars, contacts, tasks and notes and allows users to access their mailboxes  from anywhere using any mobile device, such as the Apple iPhone or iPad, Android tablet or smartphone and Windows Phones.

Commtouch Premium Antispam

Using a patented Recurrent Pattern Detection system, Commtouch Premium Antispam actively analyzes large volumes of Internet traffic in real time, recognizing and protecting your mail servers against new spam threats the moment they emerge and taking your spam protection to over 99%.

Commtouch Zero-hour Antivirus

Commtouch Zero-hour Antivirus offers a new level of security for mail servers by actively scanning the Internet and identifying malware outbreaks as soon as they emerge, thereby providing proactive virus blocking that is effective, immediate and signature-independent.

How do I get it all?

It’s easy! Just contact our helpful sales team via live chat or email to receive a qualified price quote. Once you have that, simply fill the price quote using the SmarterTools shopping cart between now and January 5, 2012. No hassles, no headaches, no worries.

Ready to claim your holiday bonus?

Contact our Sales Team and get started today!

*Disclaimer: Offer good on new purchases of a current SmarterMail Enterprise Edition, 250 or more mailboxes or an upgrade of SmarterMail Professional Edition to a current SmarterMail Enterprise Edition, 250 or more mailboxes only. Maximum offer value is based on purchasing SmarterMail 8.x Enterprise Edition with unlimited mailboxes and comparable licenses for Exchange ActiveSync (100 mailboxes), Commtouch Premium Antispam (unlimited mailboxes) and Commtouch Zero-hour Antivirus (unlimited mailboxes). All free add-on licenses expire 12 months form the date of purchase. For existing customers upgrading to SmarterMail Enterprise, free add-on licenses correspond with existing upgrade protection, so eligible customers will receive free add-on licenses for the reminder of their upgrade protection term (up to 12 months). No other license modifications or upgrades are eligible for these offers. Offers are not valid on hosted service subscriptions, add-on purchases, upgrade protection renewals or with any other discounts or promotional offers. Offers and availability are subject to the quantity of licenses on hand and expires January 5, 2012.

Filed under SmarterMail, SmarterTools Tagged with , , , , , ,

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