November 14 , 2014

Message Systems introduces email service in the cloud

Columbia, MD--Message Systems, a provider of email infrastructure software, has introduced SparkPost, a high-performance public cloud email service that allows developers to easily add email into their web and mobile applications. For the first time, SparkPost gives email senders of all sizes access to the same premium-level email capabilities trusted by the world's leading brands to drive their customer engagement and revenue growth.

Built on Message Systems' Momentum platform, which powers 20 per cent of the world's legitimate email for industry leaders like Twitter, Groupon, LinkedIn, Match.com and salesforce.com, SparkPost gives developers easy API access to the same high-performance email sending and delivery optimization platform in a public cloud service.

"Companies are being short-changed by existing low-end public cloud email infrastructure offerings," says   Phillip Merrick, CEO of Message Systems. "Email is the most vital and universal communication channel to customers, yet today's cloud email service alternatives suffer from poor inbox delivery, limited actionable visibility into email delivery and engagement statistics, and sub-par support services. We built SparkPost to turn the industry on its head and give all companies – regardless of size – access to the industry's leading email infrastructure platform."

Message Systems' deliverability expertise sets SparkPost apart from typical cloud email delivery services. With the world's 12,000+ ISPs setting their own unique policies and bounce codes for rejecting and regulating email in order to combat spam, companies face significant challenges in ensuring that their emails reach their intended audience. With SparkPost, all customers benefit from Message Systems' unique Adaptive Email Network, which leverages Message Systems vast knowledge of bounce codes and policies from ISPs covering over 90 per cent of the world's email traffic. Message Systems software understands ISP bounce codes and polices better than all other systems, allowing for the creation of ISP-specific intelligent sending rules that automatically get emails delivered around the world. Coupled with third party email intelligence services like those offered by Return Path, SparkPost provides unmatched deliverability.

"In the time it would have taken us to send via the Unix system mailer, we were able to integrate with SparkPost," says Justin Newton, CEO at NetKi. "Thanks to SparkPost's deep and broad insight into our email message disposition, we now know exactly what's happening with our messages. Email is a critical portion of how we engage with our customers, and we are pleased to be running it on a service that not only supports our current needs as we're first starting out, but will scale with us as we grow into the market-leading company we know we will be."

In order to provide customers with maximum visibility into their email engagement, SparkPost delivers the industry's strongest analytics with over 40 metrics tracked in real-time, including opens, clicks, latency, bounce reports and full engagement data. This data, along with the included highly visual analytic tools, gives customers far deeper insight into their ongoing email performance than other cloud email services currently available. SparkPost gives customers access to this data three ways – via the analytics dashboard, a comprehensive metrics API and through streaming real-time webhooks.

"HP Exstream enables businesses to improve customer experiences through insightful, impactful and personalized print and digital communications including email," says   Carlo Sans, Director of Product Management for HP Exstream. "Because we work with global, blue-chip enterprises, we needed a partner like Message Systems who also had the experience of servicing large global organizations. Having Message Systems' powerful cloud email service as part of our offering gives us the ability to expand our solutions into email like never before."

Designed for developers, SparkPost comes with a comprehensive set of SMTP and REST APIs that allows them to easily leverage email in their web or mobile apps in minutes, regardless of language. Its unparalleled scalability also gives customers the ability to easily grow as their volumes dictate. For companies that eventually need their own dedicated email infrastructure, Message Systems offers an easy transition to managed cloud and on-premise editions, all using the same APIs as SparkPost.

"Our Heroku developers are a technically savvy group, and email is a core service to them and their customers," says Tod Nielsen, CEO at Heroku. "It's exciting to see this robust email infrastructure service delivered in such an easy-to-use, elegant way. It was clearly built with developers in mind. We welcome SparkPost into the Heroku add-on ecosystem so developers can take full advantage of this new service."

Industry data shows that developers are rapidly embracing public cloud Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) and Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) offerings. Message System's new SparkPost offering is designed to serve this market need. Leading industry research firm Gartner recently noted the explosive growth in this area: "Gartner has identified IaaS as the fastest-growing segment of the cloud market, and predicts that through 2017 spending on IaaS will grow as capabilities increase and as organizations use IaaS for more complex and business-critical workloads."

SparkPost is now available in beta exclusively for qualified developers and will be generally available in early 2015. For more information on SparkPost, visit  www.sparkpost.com.