OFFICEDOMAIN GETS $6 MIL NEW VC FUNDING

Doug Pushard, the firm''''s president, said that the money will allow Officedomain.com to continue to expand its MessageASAP unified messaging range of services, both in the US and in its international marketplace.

The idea behind MessageASAP is that it lets users access and manage all their e-mail, fax and voice-mail messages from a single inbox, either through their existing mail client or the OfficeDomain Web portal.

Pushard said that the MessageASAP service is the only unified messaging product that allows the user to maintain their existing phone number and e-mail accounts.

The investment by Sevin Rosen, said Pushard, is significant as the company focuses on early stage technology companies that have the ability to gain leadership positions in new business areas.

In parallel with the VC funding, Officedomain.com has partnered with Brierley & Partners, customer relationship management specialist

Pushard added that current growth of the MessageASAP service is "phenomenal," with first quarter growth topping the 150 percent market.

"We expect this investment by Sevin Rosen and our partnership with Brierley & Partners to accelerate our current growth," he said,

Pushard went on to say that MessageASAP now has customers in around 120 countries, and, while the focus of the service is its free basic set of facilities, customers also have the option of adding pay-for services, such as the VirusfreeASAP feature.

"This costs just a dollar a month and allows subscribers to be sure that their e-mail is completely virus-free, no matter where they access their e-mail from," he said.

Pushard said that all the pay-for features are available as an optional extra for subscribers, who can choose to take all the facilities on a "modest" extra rate basis, or pay around $10 a month for all the services in a single portfolio.

"Unlike the competition, we offer just about every possible feature that can be given in a unified messaging service, including pager and cellular notifications of received messages," he said, adding that this facility allows users on the move to monitor what messages are coming into their mailboxes.

The MessageASAP system, Pushard said, is fully TAPI (telephone application programming interface)-, MAPI (Microsoft application programming interface)- and POP3 (Post Office Protocol type 3)- compliant. In addition, it supports voice eight-bit voice sampling rates at 7,200 or 8,000 hertz, with voice messages compressed on an 8:1 ratio.

The client software for accessing the service requires a Pentium PC running Windows 95, 98 or NT 3.5.1 or later. The PC needs to have at least 32 megabytes (MB) of memory, plus 16MB of hard disk space.

Finally, to view messages inside a Web browser, the PC needs to have a copy of Netscape Navigator 3.0 or later or Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0 or later installed.

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