It's sometimes interesting to see how things turn out. Many's the time when the original plans made by businesses turn into something completely different and unexpected.

Such was the case for a small UK software sales firm known as Internet Shopper, Ltd., which was founded back in 1994. Internet Shopper was to be an online sales company. But somewhere along the way, the company, which now operates as Gordano, Ltd., became one of the premier Internet messaging firms on the planet.

The story actually begins not with Linux, but with Windows NT. NT 3.1 had just been released as company founder Brian Dorricott was trying to build an internal messaging server for Internet Shopper. He had decided to write it himself because of a growing dissatisfaction with what was out there at the time.

Initially, Dorricott attempted to get his new messaging server up and running on UNIX, but was stymied to do so. So, "we had to shift to NT," Dorricott said.

Curiously, some of the company's clientele began to take note of Internet Shopper's internal messaging server and began to inquire about obtaining it for themselves. Thus NTMail was born--a birth that heralded great success for the British company.

If you're wondering what any of this has to do with Linux, you may be surprised to learn that the company that got it start with a Windows NT product is now shifting more and more to Linux and UNIX-based platforms. When it ported it NTMail product to Linux in 1998, Gordano became one of the earliest commercial software vendors for the free operating systems that was just barely on the horizon for most propriatary software developers.

Next: NTMail Grows Up »