Forecasting an explosion in the number of UK electronic mail subscribers, Soft-Switch Inc has added a range of new facilities to its electronic mail products. Soft-Switch enterprise mail networks now have X400 gateways and SMTP gateways, while backbone management now features directory services and access control facilities. The X400 gateway enablesSoft-Switch E-mail users to connect to X400 networks, the company claiming it to be the only X400 product able to connect simultaneously multiple public mail networks; the gateway enables IBM, DEC, Wang, Hewlett-Packard and other electronic mail systems to communicate with public mail carriers via X400. It provides four levels of security, restricting communications to and from senders and communicators, and from both X25 and X400 nodes as specified. The gateway is built around an Intel 80386-based Dell System 310. The SMTP Gateway enables Soft-Switch networks to connect to TCP/IP networks, through the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol. The Soft-Switch Names Directory is now provided as a standard database, while the Access Control Facility allows users to allow or deny access between any sender and recipient or between groups of users, controlling access to the X400 gateway or other connected systems. Phila-delphia-based Soft-Switch predicts that the number of US public electronic mail subscribers will rapidly grow to 3.5m by the end of the year, from a figure of 500,000 at the end of 1988, and wants a presence this side of the Atlantic in readiness for a similar UK trend in nine to 18 months’ time.
