wanna hear about the original, veritable gmail service - the application suite built around a graphical mail interface that pre-dates elGoog’s gmail by over 2 years and has zero to do with elgoog beyond the name ‘gmail’? then read on folks (particularly those of you with nada to do, such as those working from home for corporations currently under sec investigation or in ellison’s new gobble-gobble playbook )…

yeah, okay, so by now you’ve all seen and read the news about the contentious legal battle brewing between iiir group and google about the gmail service from elGoog…iiir offered a service called ‘g-mail’ to investors, and now they estimate the value of the infringement at enough moola to buy valentino’s old manhattan digs and score dozens of hookers at velvet in geneva - and buy each one a new maybach…in fact, jason miller at webpronews wrote up a great piece including some lesser known factoids (e.g. elgoog bought gmail.com from the folks behind the garfield cartoon in 2004)…and here’s an article from the timesonline about gmail disputes overseas…

…BUT wait - there’s more! (there’s always more)…before gmail went out in 2004, this other little company called javeo owned gmail.net - for ‘graphical mail‘ - javeo was created “to provide a browser-based application rich in graphical capability and dynamic look-and-feel. Its feature-set rivals the myriad of desktop applications generally needed to manage your email, contacts, appointments, and digital images...” - then they stopped using www.gmail.net as the service site and switched over to javeo.com after getting some odd inquiries, hate mails and a deluge of assorted rants…

how do i know this? i caught up with jerry anders, cto of javeo, and here’s what he had to share (disclosure: note that i own gmail.pro and i wanted to buy that gmail.net domain, you know, for more blogging stuff)…

“Hello Dave, Thanks for the inquiry into gmail.net and for the offer to blog about us. What a refreshing idea! We generally get hate mail from those that do not do their research and think that our existence is solely based on Google’s success and that we’re trying to somehow scam the world into using gmail.net (aka javeo.com). Nothing could be further from the truth and, dare I say, we were clearly here first.

Hmm, where to start… I guess with the release of Google’s email service back in 2004, we had to shelve our gmail.net domain and use our corporate domain, javeo.com. Interestingly enough, right after Google released their version of gmail, we were contacted by a legal firm that would not disclose their client, but stated that their client was very interested in acquiring our gmail.net domain. That could have been Google, but it could have been Microsoft for all we know. Anyway, we refused to sell and at this point we’re holding on to the domain.

As for us vs. the other guys, a lot has changed since 2002. In 2002, with a ubiquitous Internet, we saw the need for better web-based email services. Furhtermore, we knew technology was right on the cusp of allowing us to deliver those services via a standard browser. We were after a feature set that would provide desktop look and feel and would facilitate heavy use if graphics — hence, the “G” in gmail was to stand for graphical email. And, for a paid subscription, there’s absolutely no advertising, no popups, nada, it’s your data and the application is there for you to manage your data. In fact, that is the only way the service is operated at the moment. Back then 20–100MB of storage was huge and we also allowed unlimited message sizes.

There are many, many other features, like disposable email addresses, instant web pages, file store and more, but we’re two “old” guys that were essentially run-over by the Google juggernaut before we could fully present our dream to the world. As to where we go from, we’re not sure, but by all means, blog away! - JA”

…so my advice, go register if you’d like and give the one month trial a run - jerry sent me a trial account, so i’ll keep you posted on my own opinions….

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