Sendmail, Inc and HP today announced significant sales momentum for their combined Linux-based email solution running on HP ProLiant servers, further demonstrating the increase in the adoption of Linux for commercial applications in the enterprise.

Since the beginning of the companies' sales and marketing relationship in January 2002, Sendmail, Inc. and HP have signed several deals yielding sales in excess of $5 million, spanning three continents and several vertical industries, including service providers, financial services firms, universities, healthcare providers and government agencies.

The relationship between Sendmail, Inc. and the former Compaq began with the packaging of Sendmail's Mailstream Manager and Integrated Mail Suite with Compaq's industry-standard ProLiant server and SuSE Linux enterprise server. Sendmail, Inc. signed a similar agreement with HP in February. Sendmail's relationship with the new HP continues its focus on the development and marketing of tested and proven Linux-based enterprise email solutions.

"Organizations are revamping their email systems to deal with the increase in demand for value added email services," said Greg Olson, co-founder and chairman of Sendmail, Inc. "The HP and Sendmail package is ideal for organizations standardizing on the Linux platform and in need of a scalable email system with a low cost of ownership and strong content management capabilities."

New customers of the Sendmail and HP solution include a wireless GSM-cell phone provider in Jordan--which has already launched a new service with the HP and Sendmail solution; the American University in Cairo; a Romanian service provider; BAX Global Logistics; HealthNET--a major healthcare provider; a large Chicago-based law firm; and a US government agency.

"Operating under strict budgetary constraints, we were tasked with finding a cost-effective email system that could easily scale. The HP and Sendmail Linux package not only met our cost and scalability needs but also included features that are necessary for our end-users such as end-user mail box control and anytime, anywhere access to email," said Dr. Sami Akabawi, associate vice president for computing & professor of Information Systems, at the American University in Cairo.

"The success of this relationship further solidifies the HP ProLiant server as the preferred platform for running Linux-based enterprise email solutions," said Judy Chavis, director worldwide Linux marketing, HP Industry Standard Servers. "The solution's scalability and competitive pricing is significantly better than RISC-based solutions--and the performance of our industry-standard ProLiant servers coupled with the expertise of the Sendmail and HP service teams makes this package the most compelling in its class for organizations who consider email a critical business application."