Web site e-mail products maturing

As the amount of e-mail generated by corporate Web sites continues to balloon, so do the prospects of companies selling software to manage this message onslaught.

Two of these vendors - Brightware of Novato, Calif., and Aptex Software of San Diego - this week will announce upgrades to their product lines. The new versions will help customers sort, route, queue and automatically answer high volumes of e-mail sent to Web site alias addresses such as info@ company.com.

While only 160 organizations purchased such software in 1997, according to a survey by International Data Corp. (IDC) of Framingham, Mass., the market is projected to grow to 12,000 customers by year-end and 25,000 by the end of 2002.

Brightware's upgrade, called Brightware Version 3, adds e-mail routing and queuing capabilities to the company's existing product, which generates replies to frequently asked questions. The new server-based Contact Center component determines which in-house employee is bestsuited to answer e-mail that cannot be handled automatically, then routes the mail to that person, along with a suggested reply.

Contact Center runs on Windows NT and works with Lotus Notes and Microsoft Exchange e-mail clients. A 10-user Contact Center license, which does not include the Answer Agent automatic response capabilities, costs $75,000. The complete package, which includes installation, professional services and first-year maintenance, costs $150,000.

Aptex's SelectResponse 3.0 also adds queuing and routing to existing automatic response capabilities through integration with the Adante 2.0 e-mail workflow application from Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories. Version 3.0 also includes an improved Java-based graphical user interface, enhanced "learning" capabilities that allow the reply-generating agents to hone their answers, and the ability to have targeted sales pitches tacked on to the bottom of replies.

SelectResponse is server software that runs on NT or Solaris and works with any Java-enabled Web browser.

According to IDC analyst Mark Levitt, Brightware and Aptex are the early leaders in the high end of this emerging market, which lately has drawn interest from brand-name companies such as IBM and GTE Web Solutions.

"The common thread between Aptex and Brightware is they are looking to expand their functionality so that they can cover all of the various categories: queuing, routing and auto-response," Levitt says.

Companies that receive heavy volumes of Web site e-mail will particularly want to exploit the advantages of software-generated e-mail replies, he adds.

One Brightware customer sees this type of software as indispensable for growing companies that do a lot of business on the World Wide Web.

"We really believe that Brightware gives us the ability to increase our customer service, and at the same time, increase the productivity of our organization," says Sean Marsh, vice president of sales and marketing at Access National Mortgage, a discount mortgage broker in Wilmington, Mass.

Marsh sees Brightware allowing his company to handle more e-mail in the future without having to add customer service personnel.

"Our goal is to go from a company that exists in 14 states to a national com-pany," he says. "If we're a national company, then we should expect about five to eight times more volume in e-mail" from the company Web site.

Brightware: (800) 532-2890; Aptex: (619) 623-0554