Azaleos -E-Mail Manager Got $10 million in venture funding

What Company is offering:
Azaleos, which helps corporations manage, update and archive e-mail.Azaleos provides enterprise-class managed e-mail solutions that combine an on-premises, physical or virtual appliance with 24 hours a day, 7 days a week remote managed services, ensuring 99.9+% high availability, business continuity and optimized performance of your Microsoft Exchange 2003, Exchange 2007, or Mobile Access environment.
How Much They Got From VCs:
They got $10 million in venture funding and named former Microsoft Corp. Chief Information Officer Rick Devenuti to its board.

The funds were provided by existing investors Ignition Partners and Second Avenue Partners, partly because the company wanted to quickly tap a market that is developing as corporations upgrade to the latest version of Microsoft Exchange. Azaleos raised the money in less than 30 days, with Chief Executive Phil van Etten saying that it would have taken six to eight months to attract new investors in Silicon Valley.
What VCs Says:

"The reason we needed to go so quick is that we have recognized that there is a shift in the way folks are approaching e-mail," van Etten said.

Historically, van Etten said, corporations were not interested in outsourcing e-mail systems to third parties. But, he said, the tide has started to shift as millions of customers upgrade to the latest version of Microsoft Exchange 2007, which was released late last year. As they upgrade, van Etten said, corporations are looking for ways to make sure that Exchange runs smoothly, patches are installed quickly and e-mails are archived properly for regulatory purposes. Van Etten said the goal is to provide those services in a more cost-effective manner that doesn't consume the time of network administrators.

"If you think of (e-mail) in terms of a utility, like electricity, you wouldn't really have someone making sure the lights are on. You would outsource that," said van Etten, who joined the company last year. "As people think of e-mail, they think of it as more of a utility and something you turn on and use it and pay for it."

How They Are Performing:
To date, Azaleos has delivered more than 100 million messages and is currently managing about 300,000 messages every day. Customers include K2, Coinstar, Zumiez and at least five undisclosed Fortune 1000 companies. Its largest customer is a Pennsylvania-based steel manufacturer.Azaleos charges anywhere from $15,000 to $110,000 for its hardware device, with a $12 monthly service charge for each e-mail address. It then charges an additional $6 per month for mobile e-mail services and $4 per month for e-mail archiving.
More at:http://www.azaleos.com/