PostX pushes the envelope

By Paul McNamara
Network World, 04/01/02

When PostX first knocked on Network World'sdoor in April 1997, the start-up's PostX Envelope - an e-mail wrapper designed to let businesses securely deliver documents to customers - was rough around the edges. However, it had the look of a winner at a time when opening an attachment could be more maddening than uncorking a stubborn bottle of wine.

Five years later, PostX can brag about A-list customers that include Charles Schwab, Merrill Lynch, Visa and the U.S. Postal Service, but the privately held company has not exactly made a household name for itself.

Enter Zero-Download PostX Envelope, an upgrade the company says will help it overcome a key obstacle to widespread deployment: namely, client software. The new version doesn't have any.

End users, in general, and consumers, in particular, have always had a love-hate relationship with client software: They love the capabilities that a snazzy e-mail add-on such as PostX can deliver; they hate the download and learning curve. However, interestingly enough, PostX says it wasn't client complexity that held adoption in check. The real inhibitor, the company says - and there's no polite way to put this - has been you folks: network policy setters who prohibit end users from loading any ol' software onto the company machine. (Not that they're criticizing such vigilance, mind you.)

With Zero-Download PostX Envelope, companies can send secure statements to their clients - at home or at work - without fretting about whether they have the appropriate client software. Everything needed to open and decrypt the password-protected document arrives with the e-mail.

Now PostX says it can credibly tell would-be customers they can replace snail-mail documents with PostX Envelope for 100% of a client base. Anything less greatly reduces the potential savings.

If the company's right, we may be able to check back on it again in another five years.

Is your workplace voice mail really yours?

A couple of weeks back we asked for horror stories about the rank-and-file abusing company resources by storing boatloads of personal junk on company networks. The request prompted this fascinating - if somewhat tangential - reply from reader Parrish Knight:

"Employees so often seem to think that they are entitled to something that is clearly not theirs [such as the server space issue you mention]," Knight writes. "For example, not long ago, our COO created a new policy declaring that everyone's voice mail at the office was to have the same password so that other employees would be able to get into the voice mail boxes on an as-needed basis. I didn't even blink when he made this policy - I simply went along with it. However, most of the other employees were outraged, saying that they had a 'right to privacy' regarding their phone calls."

"This kind of attitude is utterly baffling to me," Knight adds. "You are on company property, during company time, using company equipment to access a company service for [presumably!] company purposes. Absolutely everything about that voice mail belongs to the company. How can you possibly say you have any right to keep it 'private' from your company?"

A couple of points: Buzz cannot imagine what benefits this company might accrue from such an intrusive policy that could possibly outweigh the predictably fierce employee backlash. I can never recall needing to access someone else's voice mail. The policy seems dumb.

However, Knight is right about the principle. This isn't our stuff, so we don't get to make the rules, even when those who do use bad judgment.

No one reads the content of my inbox but me . . . I believe. The address is buzz@nww.com.