Teklab Systems Network Integration has been appointed sole distributor of small business internet connectivity and email solutions developed by Virtual Motion, Inc., a San Francisco-based software development company.
Virtual Motion`s Internet LanBridge and Internet MailBridge products have been sold and supported in South Africa since March 1997. Since then, the products have become the leading modem sharing and POP3 e-mail server solutions in the South Africa SME Internet market in - over 2300 units have been sold - almost ten times that of its closest competitors.
Virtual Motion`s Marketing Director, Ryan Gilbert, announced that "Teklab will manage the distribution and support of the solutions on a nation-wide basis, and will focus on growing the market effectively and aggressively." Gilbert added, "the key to Virtual Motion`s success in South Africa has been the high level of support and installation services that the company offered to customers and resellers."
"Teklab has been valuable and highly skilled partner over the past two years, and their appointment as South African distributor is a natural progression in our relationship; our customers will be even better served," Gilbert said.
Gilbert said that Virtual Motion products are "selling extremely well" in the United States and other international markets. "The next frontier in the Internet revolution is connecting small and medium enterprises and enabling their participation in e-commerce activities", he said. "Access to the Internet and email is step number one; everything else builds on top of these killer apps."
Ian Rowland, Teklab`s Managing Director, said the company will market Internet LanBridge and Internet MailBridge to Virtual Motion`s established South African reseller channel and to leading South African ISPs. Teklab will also offer installation services and end-user support to reseller and customers, building on the company`s extensive experience with the connectivity solutions.
The company estimates that sales will more than double over the next 9 months, as South African businesses continue to realise the importance of Internet connectivity and an on-line presence. "We intend to continue to lead in the small business connectivity market," he said.
Both products, Rowland explained, meet the needs of any users that need to resolve connectivity problems with a low-cost, effective solution.
Internet LanBridge, he explained, allows multiple, concurrent user access using only a single modem and one standard dial-up connection. "In a normal situation," he said, "connecting your LAN to the Internet required setting up an IP router and re-configuring your network to support TCPIP. With LanBridge, all you need is a standard modem and a standard dial-up connection. You simply access the Internet using your LAN`s existing protocols, off-the-shelf hardware and an inexpensive dial-up Internet account.
Internet LanBridge has won multiple products awards, and has been included on Windows Magazine`s Winlist 100 - a list of the top 100 software product worldwide for two consecutive years since May 1997.
"This is an inexpensive, workable solution that supports all platforms from Windows 95 to Novell," Rowland said.
Internet MailBridge provides organisations with a low-cost multiple user E-mail exchange. In this instance, virtual motion sets up a domain for an organisation so all E-mail goes to a central source. From there it is distributed to users throughout the system. The software allows users to set up a central POP3 mailbox from which local mail is distributed to a virtually unlimited number of users, Rowland explained. Internet MailBridge receives downloads from a standard Internet Service Provider into the organisation`s domain. All mail that goes to that domain is kept in the single POP3 mailbox until it is distributed locally.
Internet MailBridge works with most standard Internet browsers such as Netscape and Microsoft Internet Explorer, as well as a number of client E-mail viewing programs such as Eudora, Pegasus and Microsoft Exchange.
Installation of the software is simple. It takes less than 30 minutes to install the server software on a correctly configured machine.
Primary users for the two products are education, small business and organisations that need Internet connectivity services without the installation of expensive hardware or those who are seeking a low-cost connectivity solution to their existing networks.
Retail price for a combined package or Internet LanBridge and Internet MailBridge is R3 933-00 (inclusive of VAT) The company offers a three-user version of Internet LanBridge for R1 470-60 (inclusive of VAT).
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