BITNETS

BITNETS was first established on March 13, 1999 in Bombay, India as an Internet consulting service.

BITNETS introduced BEAMERS (an acronym for BITNETS Enhanced AutoMated E-mail Routing System), an intricate mail forwarding service based on formail and procmail scripts hosted on shared Linux server space in the Houston, Texas area.

BITNETS moved to Alberta, Canada and gradually switched to its own Windows-based mail services, adding new technologies as these became available, such as content filtering, anti-virus, TLS/SSL and anti-spam.

The service was in mid-2003 built from the ground up on the FreeBSD OS using open-source components and branded MAILHOSTING.CA. It is an e-mail perimeter defense service, designed to stop e-mail borne threats at the network perimeter, with SMB and SOHO versions.

It offers e-mail accounts accessible through POP3 over TLS, IMAP over TLS, a secure SSL Webmail interface and SMTP over TLS for mail delivery. Security features include end-to-end enforced use of TLS if required, virus scanning and spam filtering.

BITNETS was awarded the St. Albert Chamber of Commerce "2003 InfoTech Award of Distinction".

Name

The name BITNETS was inspired by:B - the first letter of the last name of founder and principal Gary Bajaj, IT - an existing acronym for Information Technology, used to make a pronouncable word and NETS - Network for Electronic Transfers (Singapore). The word "net" as in "net result" spelled efficiency - if Bank A owed Bank B $10, and Bank B owed Bank C $10, the end of day settlement would be $10 transferred electronically from Bank A to Bank C.

Bajaj Internet Technology and NETwork Solutions was the original backronym, since in "IT", "Internet" was more relevant than "Information", and NETS being a shorter version of NETSOL (an abbreviation used by Network Solutions, the only domain registrar at the time) naturally expanded back to NETwork Solutions and fit in nicely, elaborating the description of the business in the name. It was used interchangeably with the replacement backronym Business Internet Technology and NETwork Solutions. BITNETS is stylized in uppercase letters in recognition of the original acronym.

External links

* [http://www.bitnets.com/category/press Press coverage]