Award-winning M'sian software firm set for international debut
By Yap Cheng Theng
Friday, August 25 2000

The three-man start-up harbour high hopes of selling its products--ProxyNow! and MailNow!--in Australia, Hong Kong, Taiwan and the United States by the second quarter of 2001. The Chinese version for these products is also expected to be ready by then.

These two products won the reputable 'Best Software Merit' at the Asia Pacific MSC IT&T Awards (APMITTA) 1999.

According to its director Thomas Tan, version 3.0 for both ProxyNow! and MailNow! is scheduled for release this fourth quarter. Designed for international users, InternetNow! is confident its upcoming release will be as popular as its previous versions.

"We are currently selling about 50 to 70 units of ProxyNow! and MailNow! every month," Tan claimed.

The company has been selling ProxyNow! and MailNow! in Malaysia and Singapore and has to date a total of 500 customers. Customers include Maybank Assurance, EON, UMBC Bank.

"We developed our first product in December 1998 and started selling it in April 1999. Since then we have achieved about RM50,000 sales every month. We are also growing at a rate of 30 percent quarter to quarter," Tan said.

InternetNow! recorded RM550,000 in revenue in 1999. Apart from its two flagship products which are set for the international debut, the company also has ProtectNow!, an anti-virus email gateway add-on for MailNow!; BlockNow!, an Internet filtering tool and CybercafeNow!, a cyber-cafe management software. All products are designed to run on the Windows family--Win95, Win98, WinNT and Win2000.

To speed up its overseas move, InternetNow! is currently on the lookout for local distributors in each of its intended target markets. The company has 100 resellers in Malaysia and one distributor in Singapore.

"The one competitor we see in the proxy and mail market is Wingate. Version 3.0 of these products have similar features that match their offerings. We're a small start-up and have nothing to lose. Our competitive edge is to maintain our pricing structure and give better margins to our distributors," said Tan.

InternetNow! products cost between RM3,000 to RM5,000 depending on number of users.

The software developer meanwhile, also scored another milestone today when it announced it sold the rights of its latest product MyFirewallNow!, an Internet security software, to Norway-based data security developer Norman Data Defense Systems.

Under the licensing agreement, Norman Data will incorporate MyFirewallNow! into the next version of Norman Virus Control 5.0 in the next few months.

Norman Virus Control is a software that can detect and clean data viruses. Set up in 1984, Norman Data Systems has subsidiaries across Europe and in the United States. Its R&D center is located in Australia.

Tan declined to reveal the value of the deal stating only that with this agreement, the company can achieve a 100 percent growth for this year with a turnover of RM1.3 million to RM1.5 million.