There are certain IT service packages that a business rightfully assumes will come as standard because they are the ever-present backbone that keeps so many office-based companies functioning.
One of these is business email, which became an increasingly important part of many business computers starting in the 1980s and practically ubiquitous thanks to applications such as Microsoft Outlook and its predecessor, Microsoft Mail.
The need for internal and external email became a major reason why many businesses bought a personal computer for every desk and a mail server in every office.
However, over a decade before Microsoft Mail, there were already business email services that shaped the virtual post offices that are seen in IT facilities all around the world.
The Father Of Email
Electronic distance messaging had existed since the invention of the telegraph by Alfred Vail and Samuel F.B. Morse, through a series of communication wires that would eventually be used for telecommunication, telephony, Telex and eventually the Internet.
Before the Internet, however, was ARPANET, and in 1971 a computer engineer named Ray Tomlinson invented electronic mail, although at the time he thought very little of it.
He had previously written a small program called SNDMSG, which allowed a user to leave messages for other people who eventually used the computer. It became very popular, but the fact it was limited to a single computer made it more akin to applying sticky notes to a desk than a communications revolution.
Mr Tomlinson altered the software slightly to allow it to work with CYPNET, a file transfer protocol he also made, which meant that electronic messages could be sent from any computer on ARPANET to any other computer.
He was also the person to designate the at symbol (“@”) for users of a specific computer. Email addresses have used this first ever since.
He sent the first-ever email, although he does not remember what it said, only that it was as inconsequential as “QWERTYUIOP”.
Whilst it would take over a decade for the true revolutionary power of email to be understood, there were attempts to take advantage of electronic communication almost immediately, particularly once fellow computer scientist Larry Roberts developed the first email manager.
From Insecure Research To Secure Business
Security with emails is a critically important aspect of business, but whilst people know to be careful with their usernames, passwords and email addresses, this security-first approach was thought about from the very beginning.
The transition from the research-focused ARPANET and SNDMSG to the modern world of secure email mailboxes was not just a technological change but a cultural one; academics, engineers and computer scientists at the cutting edge were less concerned about intrusion and sabotage than they perhaps should have been.
The first-ever email application was written the same year as SNDMSG but was designed to make using the protocol easier and not with commercial use in mind.
It would not take long before Larry Breed of the Scientific Time Sharing Corporation (STSC) would develop the first commercial email service, 666 Box, for the mainframe time-sharing company I. P. Sharp Associates (IPSA).
Nicknamed the “Sharp Mailbox”, Mr Breed’s system was designed to be used by businesses and was popular in the early era of networked computing’s use in businesses.
Part of the reason for this was due to a competition between himself and a fellow programmer and security expert named Leslie Goldsmith at Lower Canada College, Montreal.
Mr Goldsmith had become known as an early hacker of ARPANET systems, breaking into insecure email systems largely for the thrill of it and to provide feedback on the system’s many vulnerabilities.
Eventually, he would be tasked by IPSA to write a new version of 666 Box that was “Leslie Goldsmith proof”, and through various extensions would become a popular part of many mainframe systems until the rise of the Personal Computer.
The Queen Of Email
Most of the first email milestones have sadly been lost to history; the importance of email was underappreciated, and considered to be a less-useful digital version of Telex and fax machines.
This is why, unlike the first telephone call and the first telegram, the details of early commercial emails have not been kept despite their historical importance.
However, the first use of email by a head of state was widely publicised in 1976 as recounted by an article by Wired.
When ARPANET arrived in the United Kingdom in 1976, the first message sent from the Royal Signals and Radar Establishment was by Her Majesty, Elizabeth II, using the username “HME2”.
The message was simply to announce the availability of the programming language Coral 66 onto ARPANET, but it would predate the use of email in Jimmy Carter’s presidential campaign as well as the use of IBM PROFS in the White House, something that would become critical to the Iran-Contra scandal.