E-mail software maker Sendmail Inc. is partnering with software company Cloudmark Inc. to provide integrated antispam features for companies using Sendmail e-mail messaging products.
Cloudmark's Authority enterprise antispam technology will be integrated with Sendmail MTAs (message transfer agents), giving Sendmail customers a "plug-and-play" antispam technology, Cloudmark said.
Sendmail, which is also available as open-source software, is one of the mostly commonly used enterprise e-mail platforms and the partnership is likely to bring more exposure to Cloudmark, an antispam startup founded by Napster co-founder Jordan Ritter and antispam phenom Vipul Ved Prakash, a co-founder of Cloudmark.
Cloudmark's products use a Microsoft Outlook antispam plug-in called SpamNet to maintain a distributed, 700,000 person peer-to-peer antispam network. Technology designed by Prakash called "Vipul's Razor" allows Cloudmark to assemble samples of spam e-mail submitted by SpamNet users and distill "spamGenes," the basic building blocks of spam messages, from the submissions.
The spamGenes are used to create signatures, or "spamDNA," that Cloudmark's products use to identify and block spam messages and allow legitimate e-mail correspondence to pass through undisturbed, Cloudmark said.
Cloudmark's Authority product runs in memory on an organization's existing Sendmail MTA and uses the information from SpamNet to flag spam e-mail, Cloudmark said.
Sendmail's decision to partner with Cloudmark comes after a number of similar announcements by other enterprise messaging and e-mail security companies.
In September, Sophos PLC announced the purchase of antispam maker ActiveState Corp. for US$23 million. Sophos intends to merge ActiveState's PureMessage antispam gateway with its own gateway mail product, MailMonitor.
Adding to the pressure on Sendmail, other leading messaging software vendors, including Trend Micro Inc. and Network Associates Inc., announced partnerships or made purchases in the last year to add antispam capabilities to their products.