Rumor: Did RIM Purchase Alt-N & MDaemon Email Server? Full Integration This Year?

My buddy Josep let me know about this interesting thread on MDaemon’s mailing list. It looks like Alt-N, the company behind the popular SOHO MDaemon Email Server, is now a subsidiary of RIM. This move supposedly is meant to bring contact, calendar, and tasks synchronization along with a more integrated solution. The details are skim and unconfirmed but the info looks solid and kind of makes sense on RIM’s part. So now I am curious. How many people are using the MDaemon Email Server???

The original message that you can find cached at this link which has now been deleted…

- -------- Original Message --------
Subject:        [Distributors] Alt-N Reseller Announcement
Team,

Dear Valued Partner,

Alt-N Technologies recognizes that many of your customers have inquired
about integration of Blackberry devices with the MDaemon Email Server.
While there is currently a solution for this integration using the
Blackberry Internet Service (BIS) for email and the SyncML server
(SyncJe) for PIM (contact, calendar, tasks) data, we recognize that
customers desire a more integrated solution within MDaemon.

To address this issue, we are pleased to announce that Alt-N
Technologies is now a subsidiary company of Research In Motion (RIM),
maker of the Blackberry mobile devices. This new relationship was
created due to Alt-N's expertise in the (small-to-medium) SMB market and
RIM's desire to partner with a strong, global SMB Email vendor. The
result will be a stronger SMB Email/Mobility solution for you and your
customers.

While full integration between Blackberry devices and the MDaemon Email
Server will not be available until later this year, we wanted to share
this important information with you for two reasons:

1) To announce that stronger Blackberry/MDaemon integration will be
available in 2009 so you can respond to customer integration concerns,
which may be causing them to consider an alternative product;

2) To enable you to communicate with prospective customers that MDaemon
is the best solution when asked about the future roadmap for Blackberry
integration.

We are asking our partners to refrain from making any proactive, public
announcements (Web site, blogs, press releases, etc.) at this time. We
will be providing information at a later date that will support a more
proactive marketing communications efforts.

We welcome your feedback regarding this information and encourage you to
contact Mollie S ( [email protected]) or myself
( [email protected] directly if you have any additional questions or
comments.

- --
*Kevin B*
Director of Marketing
Alt-N Technologies, Ltd.
Trusted Messaging Solutions