ePostalNews: RPost To Pay for Adoption

RPost, the Registered Email house, is going to put its money where its mouth is.

The company is offering to underwrite the adoption of its software by smaller posts that may be hanging back from committing to the widgetry because they’re lacking either the budget or the consensus needed to take the plunge. It’s a device all of the major technology companies have used.

In this case, RPost is putting up an initial million-dollar purse to fund the posts’ dive into e-mail proof of delivery, encryption and electronic signature services from launch through stable profitability.

Based on its experience with the Cayman Islands, Bermuda, Columbia and Iceland, RPost thinks it’s worked out the implementation kinks and can effectively package up that capability.

It says its involvement is more likely to ensure success. Simple branding by a post isn’t enough. It’s willing to pay for localization, preparation of the marketing materials, training, approaches to key accounts and a billing and collection system and split the costs of promotional campaigns.

What it needs from the post is for the postmaster general to buy in and assign at least one technical person and one sales and marketing person to the project, jobs that some countries with other widgetry are outsourcing. More people would probably be better but best is to have the right people – and top management’s support.

RPost has always claimed its system can be launched in 30 days, with revenues starting to come in 60 days later. With its money on the line, it will stick around and handhold for a year, CEO Zafar Khan said.

The company figures that the scheme will cost it about $100,000 a country so it could assist at least 10 countries at a time. It has staff at the ready.

The million-dollar fund is both expandable and self-renewing via licensing arrangements, although Khan said long-term the royalties will even out so the assist is ultimately free.

Still it doesn’t matter if the posts come on board or not because RPost is going to launch in their countries “with them or without them,” Khan said. It’s got international operations in Costa Rica spearheading penetration into Spanish-speaking Latin America, others in Brazil, India, Indonesia and Europe and is currently setting up in the Philippines.

It has hired Dennis Gilham, a former director of corporate partnerships and product marketing for NeoPost and one-time director of R&D for Alcatel Business Systems, to manage the so-called “E-Post Investment Fund.”

RPost is also on the verge of releasing a web-based version of its widgetry that integrates with all existing e-mail packages – public and private – so people never have to leave their comfort zone. Iceland is about the launch with the rev.

Meanwhile, Applied Systems, which owns 30%-40% of the American and Canadian insurance brokers market, has integrated RPost into its business management platform, which has 130,000 users.

Insurance agents and brokers will be able to legally prove who e-mailed what to whom and when – a touchy point with them – creating a HIPAA-compliant service that protects the policyholders’ personal information such as Social Security numbers, driver’s license numbers and bank and credit card information.

Reprinted with permission from ePostalNews.