May
1998
Outblaze is founded. Offices are set up in a cramped Wanchai
building and the Company begins developing several web-based
multilingual communication services.
September 1999
NewsCorp’s StarTV is Outblaze’s first big brand
name client
June 1999
Concerned about the growing volume of spam, Outblaze
develops and publicizes new anti-spam features, setting the
tone for the next decade of intensive anti-spam efforts and
zero-tolerance approach to spammers.
March 2000
Outblaze is the first company in Hong Kong and North Asia
to post a PricewaterhouseCoopers Web Audit. Outblaze commissioned
the audit in response to growing industry concerns about inflated
traffic figures claimed by many dotcom companies.
December 2000
Hello Kitty goes hi-tech. Outblaze and Sanrio partner
to bring Hello Kitty into the digital age and offer a Hello
Kitty-themed suite of online services, still going strong
today.
August 2002
Outblaze officially outlasts the Dotcom Bubble (“How
Outblaze Outlasted The Bubble”, BusinessWeek, August
19, 2002).
November 2002
Outblaze relocates its headquarters from “a drab building
next to an outdoor market redolent with the pungent smells
of fresh meat and fish” to the newly-built CyberPort
(as described in BusinessWeek, December 16, 2002).
February 2003
Outblaze wins the first of many tech awards, taking the Gold
at the Hong Kong IT Excellence Awards.
May 2005
Outblaze collaborates on a paper with the Organisation for
Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). The result is
the May 25, 2005, report Spam Issues in Developing Countries,
which alerted governments and organizations to the specific
dangers that spam poses to countries with underdeveloped Internet
infrastructure.
May 2006
Outblaze unveils its AJAX Webmail offering, a service which
delivers a desktop email client experience using only a Web
browser.
June 2006
Outblaze joins the Messaging Anti-Abuse Working Group (MAAWG),
and continues to respond in the sternest possible manner to
the threat of unsolicited bulk email.
December 2006
Outblaze launches OutblazeVideo, a web service that lets users
create, edit, and share presentations, videos, and slideshows.
2007, 2008
Outblaze delivers services to over 75 million users across
480,000 unique domains. The Company processes 250 million
email messages every day.
April 2009
Outblaze sells its messaging division to IBM, who uses
the Outblaze business and premises to set up the first IBM
cloud computing laboratory in the region. Outblaze messaging
services becomes part of IBM’s Lotus LiveEngage online
social networking and collaboration service for businesses. |
