Looking to dramatically increase the efficiency of e-mail gateways and help companies speed the process of sending and receiving e-mail, San Bruno, Calif.-based start-up IronPort Systems Inc. Tuesday raised the curtain on its proprietary operating system, AsyncOS, specialized to do just that.

"Our mission at IronPort is to revolutionize Internet messaging," said Scott Weiss, chief executive and co-founder of IronPort, and former executive at Microsoft, Hotmail, EDS and McKinsey & Co. "The opportunity is immense -- every corporation in the world has several messaging gateways deployed, and most often these solutions are put together in-house. To seize this opportunity, IronPort has combined breakthrough technology, a very strong management team, and founders and investors who have a history of innovating in messaging."

IronPort said AsyncOS is "optimized for the asynchronous nature of messaging applications." While the company didn't release any further details, it noted that "traditional" operating systems are optimized for rapid response to user input, and thus utilize system resources inefficiently because those resources are kept standing by in order to react quickly.

"AsyncOS can process messages 1,000 percent more efficiently than traditional systems," said Founder and Chief Product Officer Scott Banister, founder of the ListBot Internet mailing service that has since been acquired by Microsoft Corp.

Others appear to see potential in Banister's company as well. In its one year of existence, IronPort has raised $3.9 million from the likes of investors like Sabeer Bhatia, chief executive officer of Hotmail; Jack Smith, chief technology officer of Hotmail; Peter Thiel, chief executive officer of PayPal; Max Levchin, chief technology officer of PayPal; eVoice Founder Wendell Brown; and John Hamm, former director of Brocade and chief executive officer of Whistle Communications.

The company plans to release its first gateway product built on AsyncOS in spring 2002.