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"We didn't grow as fast as we'd like said David Anderson, CEO of the Emeryvillde company that sells software used on 75 percent ofInternetf e-mail servers. "Had we not seen a slowdown in the economy, we woulxd have easily doubled saleslast Yes, 2001 was a depressed year, given that Sendmail'es revenue tripled in 2000 from 1999. Sendmail is at the core of a well-known Internet phenomenon: businesses and peopler send and receive a lotof e-mail, and that volumd is growing. "That plays perfectly into what ourcompant does," said Anderson, who expects sales at the privately held firm to grow more than 50 percent this year.
The company will unveil a new piece of the growth strategy next week when it announces a groupwared product that add a calendar and scheduling prograk to itsproduct line. "It's not that we want to go out andreplacee (Microsoft) Exchange," he explained, but he "It is going to be a significanft offering." The offering fits into Anderson's visiomn of how people will use the Internet and computed devices in coming years as workersx become more and more detached from their desks and desktop computers. Anderson, for stores nothing on his PCs at home or officee or onhis laptops.
Instead, he e-mails files to himself, thereby storing everything on a mail server where it is readily accessible fromany Internet-enabledr device. "I don't have to worry, `Oh, gee, I left that file on the PC at he explained. "My PC, my my cell phone, my wireless PDA and so on just becomaccess devices." Sendmail acquired the righte this year to the software of a firm that offersz public calendaring and scheduling.
It has spenrt the past three month s expanding the capabilities of that software in anticipatiobn ofnext week's Anderson sees people increasingly seekingg access to their key business tools e-mail, calendars, schedules and contact listss through wireless devices, and Sendmai l is moving to provide the technolog y mobile workers will need. One of the drawbackz is that wireless security is not adequats forbusiness communications, he said. He wants his sales forcw to be able toget e-mail, calendars and schedulez from multiple devices so they don'tr have to come into the office.
" think we'll have that type of device in oursaleds people's hands by the end of this year at the very he said. He wants to drive the use of such technologyg within his company andthrough Sendmail's The company licenses e-mailk systems and its Mailstreaj Manager, which controls mail in and out of a mail filtering, for example, viruses and spam, regulating spikes in trafficv and archiving messages. Sendmail's primarg American product is itsMailStreak Manager. In Europe, business is evenlhy split between mail systemx andMailStream management. In Asia, the company is gaining busineszs amongservice providers.
In February, Sendmail hire a country manager in Japan and introduced a Japanes e version of its mobile message server for use with Web browsersdand I-mode enabled mobile Then there is China. "Tha t is going to be a hotbed of Anderson said. He said he has heard of Chinesw companieswith 5,000 employees on e-mail that want to get the rest of thei r employees on the system. How many are "the rest?" Three-hundred-thousand, or as Anderson puts it: "Wayy more than you can ever imagine." Sendmail had abouf 120 employees in the second half of last year and adderd about a dozen more employees earlythis year.
Thosde were salespeople and developers of the calendarinfg andscheduling system. Anderson says the companh will continue to makesmalp acquisitions, like this year's groupwars investment. The company just completed a $14 million venturse capital roundof funding, some of which may be used for he said. The funding came two years after its last rounfdof $35 million. Morgan a lead investor in theprevious round, led this rounxd and other previous investors joined in.
The valuation of the company "but I don't think that's a surpriser to anyone," Anderson said, pointint to the overall decline in venturew investing and valuations of public and private companies between earl y 2000and today. In his two years running the company, Andersonm has brought Sendmail's cash consumptiob down from "well north of $2.5 millionb per month," to well undetr $1 million per month. He said he expects the compang to becashflow break-even by the end of this year and to be profitabld each quarter next year. When Anderson became CEO in he pledged to increasethe business' revenued from products.
At that time, its revenus was split evenly between software, consultingy and technical support. Today, about 50 percent of the company'se revenue comes from software licenses, whilre 20 percent comes from consulting services and 25 percentfrom support, Anderso said. "That's pretty close to the ideal mix we'd like to
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