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Seattle Startup Vets Takes on Google with Helm, a New $499 Personal Email Server (geekwire.com)
A Seattle-area startup is aiming to take on giants such as Google and change the way we do email with a new physical personal email server. From a report: Helm today unveiled its $499 device that lets consumers send and receive email from their own domain, in addition to saving contacts and calendar events. It's a bold bet that aims to provide comfort at a time when privacy and security issues related to personal data hosted by big tech companies in the cloud are top of mind. The idea comes from Giri Sreenivas and Dirk Sigurdson, two entrepreneurs who already sold a security startup and raised a $4 million seed round from top venture capital firms last year.
The device is about the size of a router and looks like an upside-down book placed on a table. It connects to a home network and pairs with a mobile app that lets users create their own domain name, passwords, and recovery keys. Helm support standard protocols and works with regular email clients such as Outlook or the Mail app, with encryption protecting connection between the device and the apps.
The device is about the size of a router and looks like an upside-down book placed on a table. It connects to a home network and pairs with a mobile app that lets users create their own domain name, passwords, and recovery keys. Helm support standard protocols and works with regular email clients such as Outlook or the Mail app, with encryption protecting connection between the device and the apps.
Spam filtering is what makes e-mail usable nowadays and yet on the official site they choose to ignore it completely.
There is a market for this kind of thing, but it's a small one.
If I am a very small company or an individual who needs "in house" email where no third party can be subpoenaed and where I control the encryption keys, AND where it's easy to run with minimal management, that is worth paying for.
But for most companies small enough where this would be worth considering, a completely outsourced email solution is better. For almost all individuals, outsourced email is better.
In the unlikely event that something like this gets more than "niche market" traction, expect the major players to either buy these guys out or come out with competing products. There's not much in this product that is innovative enough that the proprietary features, if any, can't be worked around and/or that customers won't care about them enough to deter competition.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Are you kidding? Have you ever tried maintaining your own email server? $500 is dirt cheap compared to maintaining your own.
Maybe it was fine in the old days where all you did was install linux and make sure sendmail/postfix was running, but in todays environment maintaining an email server is a bloody nightmare. DMARC records, SPF records, reverse IP mapping... SSL certificates and security rules... And lets not get into arbitrary nonsense rules that some companies set in a misguided attempt at combating spam.
Even when you know what you're doing, it's a PITA. If you're not fully versed in all the intricacies of the various RFPs and SMTP servers in general, then you're going to have a particularly nasty time.
Based on what I know, I can't help thinking that they might be biting off more than they can chew. But if they actually do pull it off, then they are going to make a completely justified mint.
Preface: https://www.spamhaus.org/pbl/
Substance: I am not normally a betting guy, but I would wager that 95% plus of the US population would not have the ability to get beyond 50% delvierability for "legitimate" emails using such a device. I am ASSUMIng that the outbound connections from the "device" to the recipients MX server would originate from the user's local IP address (unless they also include some kind of outbound relay service, which would seem to be self-defeating in this context). Many (perhaps even a "large majority") email server operators use services which are designed to reduce spam, and one of the most common ways this is done is by blocking incoming connections, either at the MTA or network level, based on a range of "known dynamic IP addresses", i.e. the IP address ranges assigned by an ISP to customers who have not chosen (or do not have the option to chose) a static IP address for their connection. Organizations like Spamhaus publish / provide access to lists of such ranges which email server administrators can use to automatically block or flag messages coming from "standard"/"dynamic"/"non-static"/"consumer and small business" IP address ranges.
While I like the concept, I think any customer of this product is likely going to be disappointed in their message deliverability unless the either A) have the money and the inclination to get a static IP address for their connection (if their ISP even offers that as an option - MANY do not, either at all or for non-business accounts) and deal with the side effects that come along with it, or B) use a third party external relay service to send their messages, thereby eliminating (or at least reducing) the utility of such a device in the first place.