The product, called Workforce Mail, integrates Sendmail's e-mail software with HP's ProLiant servers and Intel's Centrino wireless chips, the companies announced Tuesday. The product also harnesses SuSE Enterprise Linux.
Emeryville, California-based Sendmail, which makes one of the Internet's most popular e-mail servers, said Workforce Mail will allow mobile employees to easily access their corporate e-mail without the need for dedicated computers--instead using wireless devices and e-mail kiosks.
Workers using wireless devices such as mobile phones, handhelds and laptops to access corporate networks are increasingly part of the business environment. Companies such as IBM and Nokia earlier this year teamed up to offer a variety of wireless products and services aimed at extending the companies' technology infrastructure to mobile devices. At the beginning of the year, Fujitsu also began selling gear in North America for the mobile work force.
Sendmail's product is especially focused on industries like health care, where most employees, including nurses, technicians and physicians, are not tethered to one location. Other "desk-less" employees include workers at warehouses and people who deliver goods.
Sendmail noted that the benefit of Workforce Mail is that it extends corporate e-mail policy to desk-less workers, allowing companies to manage security and enforce the rules of corporate e-mail usage. The product can be instructed to permit business-only use, according to Sendmail.
Workforce Mail also includes content management software to make it easier to manage the system. The product comes with antispam and antivirus technology.
