Letter from the Chairman and CEO: RPost 2010 Update

Over the course of 2010, RPost® expanded its operations in many fronts, advancing in its positioning as the global leader in High Value Outbound Messaging Services.  From system-wide technology upgrades to securing premier customer accounts, we had many important successes in this past year that I would like to share in this brief update.  

RPost remains the leader in the “Email Proof” segment with its flagship Registered Email® service, a pioneering technology with increasing adoption around the globe. During 2010, RPost significantly expanded its patent portfolio to 30 patents in 21 countries, which represent a critical safeguard against the potential of companies copying RPost technologies in the most important markets, including the Unites States, Europe, Canada, Mexico, China, India, Korea, and Australia.  RPost has initiated legal actions against several infringers in the United States, forcing them to shut-down their email-proof related initiatives, to adopt the RPost solution, or to settle outside of court to avoid potentially costly infringement rulings.  

The markets for Email Encryption and Electronic Signatures, the other two main services provided by RPost, have seen rapid growth in the past year, fueled by heightened regulatory enforcement, increasing comfort with electronic laws and ease of executing agreements electronically.  There are several providers of these technologies operating mainly in the United States. However, RPost is the only one that can offer the “email proof” feature integrated into these services, which we believe will constitute a significant advantage as the marketplace for these services becomes more competitive.  

Some of the trends that we identified at the beginning of 2010 have become more distinct as we start a new year, such as the continuing need by businesses to reduce costs by introducing efficiencies that drive paper and postage out of their business processes; the global trend to reduce the carbon-footprint of production and business processes, which adds additional incentives to reduce paper and mailing; and the increasing adoption by businesses of all sizes of software solutions offered as a service (SaaS) to replace old business practices; from cloud-based ERP and CRM systems that allow companies to run entire business processes online to more specific solutions such as those offered by RPost.  

While these trends continue to accentuate in 2011, RPost has expanded its sales operations, with a new sales office in Boston, additional sales executives in London serving the UK and Europe market, and new sales/support locations in India and Indonesia, with others planned. This will help RPost capitalize on these existing trends and accelerate the adoption of RPost solutions in those markets.  

I am providing below a summary of our 2010 milestones and achievements.

We appreciate your continued support as we enter a new year with renewed opportunities ahead.

Sincerely,

Zafar Khan
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
RPost International Limited

Major System-wide Upgrade

During 2010 RPost engaged in a comprehensive upgrade process to enhance and anticipate further changes in the general technology environment, customer demands for custom implementations, and geographic and user platform diversity. This process positions RPost to support growth in all of the markets that RPost currently operates and is in the process of launching.

The following comprehensive system-service-apps-support enhancements were completed during the past year:

Major Technology Update. RPost completed an entire system refresh end-to-end, which included re-written core software, updated software components, and new hardware and server infrastructures designed to benefit from the new technology environments.

Monitoring and Testing Simulation Systems. RPost implemented new advanced simulation systems that test every 90 seconds across 71 check points with 24/7 monitoring of 1660 daily traffic reports.

Support and Training. RPost added a new web-based support ticket system to permit building in quality incentives for support performance, with a VIP support process for major customers.

Apps and APIs that Access System. RPost launched a new .Net Outlook plug-in for Outlook 2003 to 2010, new mobile and web applications, and new web-services and product APIs for integration into technology platforms.

End User Capabilities. RPost updated each of the following services in some manner, available from Outlook, web-based, or other applications, to send email with options to (1) prove legal delivery, (2) obtain legally valid and court-admissible proof of message and attachment content, (3) record official time of sending and receiving, (4) legally sign messages and attachments with a drawn handwritten signature that can be time-stamped and cryptographically embedded in the email message body and all attached pages for authentication needs, (5) attach documents that are prepared en route for the recipient or multiple parties to legally hand sign with a few mouse strokes, (6) legally record the content and time of the recipient’s reply email, (7) encrypt message body text and/or all attachments for extra privacy desktop-to-desktop, (8) clean document metadata, convert files to PDF, or zip-compress attachments while en route to the recipient, (9) securely transfer large files that are hundreds of megabytes or more, (10) embed private contextual notes viewable by only copied recipients, and more.

RPost also completed the following solution upgrades to improve the end-user experience during 2010:

Legal Electronic Notices by Email. This now includes new options for batch sending with all components upgraded. This solution was selected as the #1 technology for sending legal electronic notices by JMBM in their corporate counsel legal guide.
Electronic Signatures for Contracts. This now includes new options for handwritten mouse-drawn signatures with multi-party signing ability and a simple method to switch ad-hoc from ‘hand sign’ to ‘email sign’ services.
 
Email Encryption for Compliance. This now includes new options for TLS transmission encryption and new methods to simplify decryption for recipients. This service was selected as the #1 email encryption service by the insurance industry leading association.
 
Records Management. This now includes new matter/client code subject tagging and filing. RPost plans to complete the update to its on-line receipt management options, administration, and searchable storage system (1st quarter 2011 release).

Mobile Messaging & Collaboration. RPost launched a BlackBerry app, iPad app, new web services, and new large file (100 MB+) transfer services; with more planned for early 2011. 

Intellectual Property Enforcement

Over 2010 RPost was granted 6 new patents, with a total of 30 patents issued in 21 countries. RPost has and will continue to use the court system to vigorously enforce intellectual property rights granted by these patents.

RPost’s patent position makes it more attractive for partners to integrate RPost technology into platforms, as this integration will give them a unique new feature set that is recognized as the global standard for "email proof".  More integrations should in turn translate into greater access for users and more elegant user interfaces.

RPost has recently filed new patent infringement suits, asking the federal court for an injunction to shut down services that RPost has identified as infringing RPost patents. Some of the parties RPost recently sued include Swiss Post, Canada Post, Innovapost, Zixcorp, ReadNotify, PointofMail and Trustifi. 

Premier Customer Accounts and Partnerships

Premier companies in the insurance, legal, financial services, and retail sectors continued to sign on to use RPost services, often focusing on one of RPost’s features as a lead-in application. For example, Electric Insurance (a GE Company) and Renaissance Group are among the many insurance companies; Ropes & Gray and Speechly Bircham are example law firms; and Pampered Chef and Southwest Airlines are example retail companies.

For examples of integrated products, Applied Systems, a leading practice management application in the insurance industry has integrated RPost into their platform now available for their 130,000 insurance brokers; and BlueTie, a leading email service provider, has integrated RPost into their hosted email platform, now available for their 250,000 small business customers.

New Website and Online Resources

During 2010 RPost launched an update of the company's website to better cover the expansion of RPost services.  The new site facilitates the process for companies in a variety of business sectors to learn how their peers are using RPost services to convert paper, mail, and fax to RPost’s specialized email services.

RPost has also launched a new company blog to provide insight to users, trainers and partners on topics related to RPost technology and market trends. The RPost blog initially focuses on four categories of content; (a) Legal Technology & Compliance, (b) Practical RPost Applications, (c) Encryption/Security, and (d) Services, Tools and Tips. RPost managers contribute to the blog in areas of their own expertise.

Additionally, the first Friday of each month, Zafar Khan, RPost’s CEO, provides a web briefing that reviews what new technology enhancements have recently been implemented or are planned for launch.  This session is designed to provide IT staff, trainers and users with a view of RPost’s product roadmap. Register for the next upcoming 30 minute briefing scheduled for 8:30 am PT / 11:30 am ET / 4:30 pm UK on February 4, 2011. Register.

RMail: An Advanced Web Messaging Platform

RPost launched RMail®, a revolutionary web messaging platform which allows users to gain access to all of RPost services with just a web browser. Unlike traditional web email services, RMail is a "sending-only" platform that integrates into the user's existing email account, eliminating the burden and hassle of maintaining an additional email account.

The RMail platform can be customized and localized into other languages, a very attractive feature for national postal services to integrate into their websites and launch an "electronic postal platform" customized and branded for their local countries. RPost is at different stages of negotiation with multiple postal service operations around the world, and we anticipate several new launches for 2011, in addition to the existing agreements with Colombia, Bermuda, Cayman Islands & Iceland.