In this context, enhanced email companies are sprouting up rapidly and jockeying to position themselves in a market that is just beginning to come into focus. Some companies create the software that enables the process. Others act as intermediaries who help companies convert to email marketing. Some do a little of both. Email marketing is set to hit its stride in the year 2000.
Some observers distinguish three intersecting market spaces.
One space addresses the media-rich interactive banner advertising found on Web pages. A second space focuses on rich, multimedia email that relies on plug-ins and executables. Finally, a third space, the focus of this article, addresses multimedia email that arrives without plug-ins, ready to go. These application servers based on Java technology really help us address scalability. We need something robust, and maintainability of the source code is a key.