Para Mail was a proprietary,
electronic mail
Electronic mail (usually shortened to email; alternatively hyphenated e-mail) is a method of transmitting and receiving Digital media, digital messages using electronics, electronic devices over a computer network. It was conceived in the ...
client that was developed and maintained by
Kris Land and his team. It was originally released in 1985 for
MS-DOS
MS-DOS ( ; acronym for Microsoft Disk Operating System, also known as Microsoft DOS) is an operating system for x86-based personal computers mostly developed by Microsoft. Collectively, MS-DOS, its rebranding as IBM PC DOS, and a few op ...
, but was subsequently ported to
Microsoft Windows
Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...
. A version for
Apple Macintosh
Mac is a brand of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple since 1984. The name is short for Macintosh (its official name until 1999), a reference to the McIntosh (apple), McIntosh apple. The current product lineup inclu ...
also used to be available.
On January 3, 1990, it was announced that Paradox Development of Para-Mail was acquired by Office Automation Systems later known as OCTuS, Inc.
Features
Para-Mail was suitable for single or multiple users on stand-alone computers or on
local area network
A local area network (LAN) is a computer network that interconnects computers within a limited area such as a residence, campus, or building, and has its network equipment and interconnects locally managed. LANs facilitate the distribution of da ...
s. A key feature of Para-Mail was that it supported image scanners, faxes, optical character recognition and voice mail all through one common user interface.
The original version worked with
Novell NetWare
NetWare is a discontinued computer network operating system developed by Novell, Inc. It initially used cooperative multitasking to run various services on a personal computer, using the Internetwork Packet Exchange, IPX network protocol. The f ...
networks and its
Novell
Novell, Inc. () was an American software and services company headquartered in Provo, Utah, that existed from 1980 until 2014. Its most significant product was the multi-platform network operating system known as NetWare. Novell technolog ...
's
Message Handling System Message Handling System (MHS) is an important early email protocol developed by Action Technologies, Inc. (ATI) in 1986. Novell licensed it in 1988 then later bought it.
Email clients
A wide variety of email clients used MHS, including:
* Para-Ma ...
(MHS) mail system;
'LAN E-mail products"
2 Apr 1990, ''Network World'' magazine a cut-down MHS-only version called PM-Remote was bundled with NetWare. Early versions used an idiosyncratic format for mail folders; later versions offer the standard Unix mailbox format as an alternative to the historical Para-Mail format.
Para-Mail supported the x.400, x.500 protocols as well as Novell's MHS.
From being the de facto standard email client on Novell NetWare
NetWare is a discontinued computer network operating system developed by Novell, Inc. It initially used cooperative multitasking to run various services on a personal computer, using the Internetwork Packet Exchange, IPX network protocol. The f ...
networks, Para-Mail, along with Eudora and others suffered a similar fate to Netscape Navigator
The 1990s releases of the Netscape (web browser), Netscape line referred to as Netscape Navigator were a series of now discontinued web browsers. from versions 1 to 4.08. It was the Core product, flagship product of the Netscape, Netscape Comm ...
when Internet Explorer
Internet Explorer (formerly Microsoft Internet Explorer and Windows Internet Explorer, commonly abbreviated as IE or MSIE) is a deprecation, retired series of graphical user interface, graphical web browsers developed by Microsoft that were u ...
version 3.0 bundled Microsoft Internet Mail and News
Outlook Express, formerly known as Microsoft Internet Mail and News, is a discontinued email and news client included with Internet Explorer versions 3.0 to 6.0. As such, it was bundled with several versions of Microsoft Windows, from Windows ...
version 1.0 free-of-charge within Windows 95
Windows 95 is a consumer-oriented operating system developed by Microsoft and the first of its Windows 9x family of operating systems, released to manufacturing on July 14, 1995, and generally to retail on August 24, 1995. Windows 95 merged ...
.
References
{{reflist
Email clients