Vendor Name: Antepo
Date of Publication: March 3, 2005
Author: David Ferris
Source of Information: Maxime Seguineau, CEO & Chairman
Quick Summary of Firm's Offerings. Open standards presence and instant messaging software.
Company Statistics
· # Full-Time Staff: 25
· # Full-Time Product Development Staff: 15
· Stock Market Status: Private.
· Revenues: $1.5M in FYE June 30, 2004. Project $3M for FYE June 30, 2005, $7M for FEY June 30, 2006.
· Profitability: Yes. Self-funded. No external venture funding.
· # Live Paying Customer Seats: About 25,000.
· Other: About 50 customers. Enterprise customers include Merrill Lynch, Ameriquest, BT, CVS Pharmacy, Rabobank, Man Financial. Service providers include Comcast and Sony.
OPN System
Product Name: OPN System
Product Functionality:
· Features: Instant messaging; chat rooms /persistent forums and file transfer
· XMPP and SIMPLE presence
· Focus on and tight integration with Microsoft environments (Windows, Active Directory, Exchange 5.5, Outlook, Sharepoint)
· Use customer's internal security system of choice: AD, MTLS, SASL, Kerberos, PKI
· End-to-end encryption
· Access Control Engine: can be used to implement Chinese walls between user groups, based on LDAP directory definitions
· Built-in compliance manager to archive and retrieve all conversations
Platforms: Server runs on Windows 2000/2003, Linux, Solaris. Code written in Java. Clients run Windows 98, 2000, XP, plus there's a RIM Blackberry version.
Competition: Main competition is Microsoft Live Communications Server. Jabber is also a competitor.
Pricing: Starts at $30/seat for small deployments; volume discounts available. If buying 10,000 seats drops to low 20's or high teens. No charge for server licenses. 20% annual maintenance applies including the first year.
Main Plans--Next 12 Months:
· New publish/subscribe engine event broker architecture
· Desktop client to be rewritten, with Microsoft Desktop integration and data sharing
· Support for PocketPC and Treo Palm OS mobile clients
· Federation with AOL Instant Messenger, with “behind-the-firewall†identity management and archiving
Special Characteristics Claimed by Vendor:
OPN System is more open, more reliable and more secure than other products. It integrates with the widest range of third-party IT infrastructure products such as operating systems, directories, databases and other IM systems:
· Operating systems supported: Windows 2000/2003, Linux and Solaris (single code base)
· Directories supported: Exchange 5.5, Active Directory iPlanet, OpenLDAP, eTrust, Lotus Domino
· Databases supported: Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle and MySQL
· Third-party federation supported: AOL (SIMPLE), Microsoft Live Communications Server 2003 and 2005 (SIMPLE), IBM Lotus Sametime (SIMPLE) and Jabber (XMPP)
For Further Information. https://www.antepo.com/.
Ferris Research Comments
· The main other standards-based IM vendor is Jabber
· Standard protocols have not gone far in the instant messaging world. Public IM systems, notably AIM, MSN, and Yahoo!, have limited interest in connectivity with other systems
· Lotus SameTime is the dominant corporate IM system. Microsoft's been slow to get a persuasive offering to the market.