Sendmail Software Battles Net ‘Spam’

Sendmail Inc. has released a new set of software tools to combat junk mail, or “spam,” on the Internet, the new start-up company said. The privately held Emeryville-based company was formed to commercialize the software developed by Eric Allman, a Unix programmer who wrote the first version of the software 17 years ago while working at UC Berkeley. Sendmail will continue Allman’s practice of giving the software away free over the Internet but will also distribute commercial products for Internet service providers and corporate customers. Sendmail, which counts among its first investors Sun Microsystems Inc. co-founders Bill Joy and Andreas Bechtolsheim, launched Sendmail 8.9 at a Baltimore trade show. The company said it will begin to offer a commercial version this summer, for an estimated price of about $1,000 per server. Sendmail said it expects to reach about $40 million in annual sales within three years from server software sales, service, training and consulting revenue. To date, Sendmail has raised about $1.25 million in funding from its investors.