Runbox

Infobox Company
company_name = Runbox
company_
company_type = Private (AS)
foundation = 1999
location = Oslo, Norway
key_people = Hans J Lysglimt: Founder and chairman;
Geir Thomas Andersen: CEO
industry = E-mail hosting
products = Runbox Mail Manager
revenue =
operating_income =
net_income =
num_employees =
parent =
subsid =
homepage = [http://www.runbox.com www.runbox.com]
footnotes =

Runbox AS is a private company providing the e-mail service Runbox Mail Manager (RMM) globally. Runbox was founded in October, 1999 by Hans Lysglimt, and is headquartered in Oslo, Norway. Runbox works closely with, and is partially owned by, Linpro AS.

History

On June 1, 2000 Runbox launched what was then a free email service with 100 MB storage space. At the time 100 MB storage space was considered a quantum leap in email storage, as Hotmail was offering just 2 MB of storage space. Runbox had a vision of online storage of email and Runbox was thus pioneering the premium e-mail market with online e-mail storage. Storage quota grew exponentially when GMail launched 1 GB free storage.

Runbox quickly had more than 100,000 users sign up for the service. When Runbox started charging their users a subscription fee in September 2001, about 3% of the users chose to pay for the service. Runbox has since then grown as a premium e-mail service and has deployed more than 700,000 e-mail accounts. On the other hand, Runbox does not offer services in some countries, including Romania, due to problems with excessive abuse and fraud. As one of Runbox support staff explained, Runbox doesn't publish the list of countries where they don't offer email services, but this list also contains southeast Asian and (West) African countries.¹

ervices

Today Runbox is a provider of premium for-pay e-mail hosting and cPanel based webhosting to individuals and businesses. Runbox now sees most growth in e-mail hosting to small and mid size businesses, but is working to increase its overall market share by developing next generation email services.

The Runbox email service is notably popular among users of the IMAP protocol, because the Runbox IMAP-capable basic plan offers 10 GB of storage, which is significantly larger than the basic plans of many other IMAP providers. As email gains popularity as a means of storing many year's worth of email correspondence, particularly for business records, the larger 10 GB of storage offered by Runbox's IMAP plan is particularly attractive to business users.

Runbox E-mail Model : Runbox Mail Manager

Runbox has developed the Runbox Mail Manager illustrated below. In this model incoming e-mail is perceived to "fall" through what Runbox calls the falling model.

Retrieve - Email comes in from sources like universities, businesses, homes or from external file.

Filter - Email can be filtered to an individual, groups of individuals, mobile devices or file.

Access - Email can be accessed by an individual, a mobile phone, a PDA, a desktop computer or a file.

Image illustrates the falling model in condensed form.

External links

* [http://www.runbox.no/ Official Runbox Site] - In Norwegian Runbox Mail Manager.
* [http://www.runbox.com/ Official international Runbox Site] - English version of the above.
* [http://www.runbox.net/ Runbox Web Hosting Site] - Runbox Web Hosting.
* [http://w2.brreg.no/enhet/sok/detalj.jsp?orgnr=979474598 Runbox's entry in the Brønnøysund Register Centre, Norway's official company register]