A New Way
Gordano Ltd. and its products' roots go back to the early 1990s. Founded as Internet Shopper Ltd, the company's first product (NTMail) was originally written for in-house use, development having been driven by the inadequacies found in other mail server software. Customers, intrigued by its capabilities, saw that NTMail offered many additional benefits such as ease of use, high performance, scalability and reliability. Demand, along with feature requests, resulted in NTMail being released for sale, with full customer support, in January 1995. The company's sales model (low price, low cost of sale and instant delivery over the Internet) was revolutionary for commercial software; it was the first company in the world to provide commercial software exclusively over the Internet. Proximity to its markets also encouraged maximum responsiveness to new feature requests.

During 1996, a comparative review of Internet Messaging software for Windows NT magazine showed that NTMail was the only product on the market that did not lose email messages! The following year the product set underwent a radical overhaul and the creation of an even more elegant, efficient and flexible architecture. This allowed Gordano to improve the number of user options significantly, remove dependence on any particular operating system and allow remote configuration. The revised product built on experience and resulted in a suite of software that is remarkable in its stability, performance, efficiency and scalability.

By the end of 1998, the name "Internet Shopper" no longer reflected the true nature of the company. Now a fully fledged messaging software publisher and vendor, with complete development, support and customer care functions, the company changed to Gordano Ltd. This was adopted from our location in South West England - the beautiful Gordano valley.

Strength to Strength
The following year, another prize was on its way with the Network Computing "Well Connected" Award for workgroup messaging solutions, presented in Las Vegas. This followed a comparative review of IMAP4 servers; "NTMail outpaces solid pack of IMAP mail servers".

By 2000, NTMail had reached version 6 and GLWebMail was launched. This provided a mail client that looked and felt like a desktop application but was accessed via a web browser. The market impact was dramatic - companies no longer needed to purchase separate server and client licenses, no new software was required to provide email to users. At the end of that year, Gordano's Unix version entered Beta. It provided all of the advantages of the Windows version but ran on Solaris or Linux (multiple flavours).

2002 saw the major rebrand of the components of the Gordano mail server. The scope of the software's capabilities, functionality and platform requirements meant that a name change was needed to clarify our offerings to an extensive global customer base. The flexible server licensing model was retained but renamed under an umbrella term - the Gordano Messaging Suite (GMS). NTMail became GMS Mail, GLWebMail became GMS WebMail and so on. This "plain English" approach has been adopted across the suite for each module.

Future Proofing
By 2004 Gordano had shipped over 20,000 licenses world-wide. We provide mature, resilient messaging systems across multiple machines (and on multiple platforms) as required by customers. The Gordano Messaging Suite (GMS) has continued to develop and offers fully integrated services for Anti-spam (webmail client-side and server-side), Anti-virus, Message Archiving, SMS, Instant Messaging, List services and Microsoft Outlook integration for MS Exchange-type functionality.

GMS Collaboration Server allows access for Microsoft Outlook XP/2003 to GMS server-side features such as: Shared Calendaring, Address books (contacts), Journals, Notes, Scheduling etc. GMS Collaboration Server builds upon the success of our products and delivers a viable Exchange alternative running on a choice of platforms and with the ability to share across alternate clients.

We offer a full range of contracted support, including global 24 x 7 telephone assistance. We have delivered to major corporations in the USA, Europe and the Pacific Rim and have the skills and expertise to provide a messaging solution tailored to suit any requirement. Still privately and employee owned, we run profitably and have no debt. We are proud to offer our customers financial health and supplier viability as well as excellent products and services.