Sort Once manages messages for small businesses

E-mail users in small offices and individual users who access their POP3-based e-mail from multiple computers (office, home, or laptop while traveling, for example) face some difficult challenges. Many of these users have e-mail requirements that are sophisticated enough to require a reliable and robust e-mail system, but they simply don’t have the budget to hire an IT person to manage their mail for them.

One solution for these users is Sort Once, a small outsourcing company in Bellevue, Wash. Sort Once provides users with a single IMAP-based message store into which e-mail from their multiple e-mail accounts is sent. Users of this IMAP mailbox can then access their e-mail from any of their computers, or from a Webmail account provided by Sort Once. Because IMAP does not download messages from the server by default, messages remain on the IMAP server for as many days as the user specifies. Also, Sort Once provides antivirus, antispam and obscene-message filtering capabilities, managing these capabilities with no client-side software required.

Sort Once works with a variety of e-mail clients, including Microsoft Outlook and Outlook Express, Eudora, Netscape Messenger, Apple Mail and other clients, plus the Webmail account mentioned above. Although Sort Once works with any POP3-based e-mail account, it does not work with AOL, Hotmail, MSN or some other e-mail accounts.

The base e-mail offering from Sort Once is priced at $5.95 per month for a 50M-byte account, while a 100M-byte account is available for $7.95. Additional storage is available for $1 per 25M bytes per month. The enhanced account includes an archive of users’ e-mail provided on CD-ROM, and other features. Sort Once also provides an additional 25M bytes of space at no charge for users who inadvertently exceed their storage allotment.

Sort Once is an interesting product for small business users who need to manage multiple e-mail accounts and/or multiple e-mail access devices, and who don’t have the time or desire to manage client-side antivirus and antispam capabilities.