Having recently signed new customers in
Europe, e-mail outsourcing supplier
Commtouch announced
Thursday it has opened a U.K. office.
Rene Montsma, Commtouch vice president and general manager
for Europe, will head up the office. A former manager
at British Telecom Europe, Montsma will be recruiting
other staff, Commtouch having already expanded from
35 employees a year ago to 250 today.
Montsma said there was great intensification in the U.K. and Europe
as part of a global explosion in the email outsourcing market.
“Portals, community sites, ISPs and wireless operators are
recognizing the power of integrated, branded email to increase
consumer loyalty, brand affinity and permission-based marketing
as a means to targeted communication,” said Montsma.
Recent European business for Commtouch has included a deal
to run email services for sports portal
Sportal. The company
has other deals with Excite UK,
RTL, and Scandinavia Online.
For its clients, including 290 key accounts, Commtouch serves
10 million active email boxes. It signed 101 new customers
in the last quarter of 1999, including 35 international sites,
and now provides interfaces in 18 languages.
The U.K. office is Commtouch’s first European presence, its
others being in Silicon Valley, New York City, and Tel Aviv.