Outblaze Milestones

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.

2009/2010
The asset sale to IBM (a first for a Hong Kong company) nets Outblaze the title of I.T. Company of the Year at the ComputerWorld HK Awards. Outblaze Founder and CEO Yat Siu is also honoured as Young Entrepreneur of the Year at the 2009 DHL/SCMP Business Awards.