Mimecast Chief Scientist to Keynote at Event Commemorating 20th Anniversary of Internet Email Attachments

The 20th anniversary of the first standardized email attachment successfully being sent via the Internet will be celebrated on March 5 during an event hosted by Applied Communication Sciences. Dr. Nathaniel Borenstein, Chief Scientist at Mimecast, and one of the technology’s inventors, will address attendees during a keynote marking the significant occasion.

Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME) is the official Internet standard that defines the way in which multimedia objects are labelled, compounded, and encoded for transport over the Internet. Co-designers Ned Freed and Dr. Borenstein led the specification of MIME and were instrumental in its worldwide adoption, enabling email users to send and receive graphics, audio, and video files via Internet mail systems and support messages in various character sets. Today, Dr. Borenstein is Chief Scientist at Mimecast, the leading supplier of cloud-based e-mail archiving, continuity, and security for Microsoft Exchange and Office 365. The event is being held at Applied Communication Sciences (formerly Telcordia Technologies Research), where Dr. Borenstein worked when he co-created MIME. Ned Freed is currently a Senior Principal Engineer at Oracle Corporation, where he works on the Oracle Communications Messaging Server.

Prior to MIME, e-mail attachments could not be sent between users on different e-mail systems, as those few systems that supported attachments had proprietary ways of handling them. As the general public started embracing the Internet through different service providers in the 1990s, the need for a standardized way to attach files to e-mails became necessary. MIME became that standard and is now used in sending trillions of email messages annually.

Following his presentation, Dr. Borenstein will be joined by John Lamb, Dr. Michael L. Littman, and David Braun to recreate the audio content within the first ever email attachment, a short jingle written to the tune of “Let Me Call You Sweetheart.”

WHAT: Keynote by Dr. Nathaniel Borenstein to commemorate 20th Anniversary of MIME

WHERE: Applied Communication Sciences, Piscataway, New Jersey

WHEN: March 5, 12:00pm

As a scientist, programmer, inventor and entrepreneur, Dr. Borenstein has been involved in Internet-related innovations since 1980, specializing in e-mail technology, human-computer interaction, and electronic commerce. He co-developed the email component of the Andrew Project. The Andrew Message System was the first multi-media electronic mail system to become used outside of a laboratory. In 1989 he became a member of technical staff at Bellcore (Bell Communications Research). There he developed a series of standards so the various electronic mail systems could exchange multimedia messages in a common way. Often referred to as an "Internet Guru," Dr. Borenstein largely focused his career around taking new innovations and driving them, collaboratively, to become successful products. He specializes in building consensus in diverse groups, and enjoys translating between different perspectives, particularly between software development and business strategy. Since June 2010 Dr. Borenstein has been working as Chief Scientist for Mimecast.

About Mimecast

Mimecast (www.mimecast.com) delivers cloud-based email management for Microsoft Exchange, including archiving, continuity and security. By unifying disparate and fragmented email environments into one holistic solution that is always available from the cloud, Mimecast minimizes risk and reduces cost and complexity, while providing total end-to-end control of email. Founded in the United Kingdom in 2003, Mimecast serves over 4,500 customers worldwide and has offices in Europe, North America, Africa and the Channel Islands.