Merce Broadside is a mass messaging system. It is used by organisations which need to send hundreds of thousands of automatically generated emails to customers, counterparties, subscribers, etc

Merce Broadside does not replace an enterprise email system like the ones implemented by Merce, Microsoft Exchange, or IBM Lotus Domino. An enterprise email system is used for one-on-one communication between individuals both within and outside the organisation. A mass messaging system is used to reach out to large numbers of outside parties, usually in short bursts of mail transmission. The mails that are sent out by a mass messaging system are usually automatically generated by back-office business applications.

Merce Broadside is used by organisations which have hundreds of thousands, or millions, of counterparties to whom they need to send email messages regularly.

Banks need to send account statements to all their account holders. These account statements are generated by automated software of their core banking systems, often in the form of PDF files. Each account holder is expected to receive the statement for his own account --- this is not a case where all users can be given the same message. Such a bank may use Merce Broadside to send out all these account statements reliably and fast every month or quarter.

Sharebrokers need to send out deal confirmation slips to their customers every day, after trades are executed on behalf of customers on the stock exchanges. In India and some other countries, it is a regulatory requirement that such deal confirmation slips be sent out. A large sharebroker may have hundreds of thousands of retail clients, out of which ten thousand may be trading every day. Thus, ten thousand deal confirmation slips will be generated by the broker's back-end trading system, and will need to be sent out at the end of trading hours reliably and at high speed every day.

Utilities like telephone companies and electricity supply companies need to send bills to their customers at the end of each billing cycle. Such applications can be taken care of by Merce Broadside.

Colleges and universities have large requirements for email communication with applicants, students, and alumni. Communication with students may be taken care of by internal campus email backbones, but applicants and alumni need an industrial strength product like Merce Broadside.

Online publishers send out email newsletters or magazines to subscribers. Their editorial and graphics arts teams usually create each issue, and then send out the issue to hundreds of thousands of subscribers overnight by email. Merce Broadside will accept a list of recipients and a single copy of the outgoing magazine issue, and will transmit this to all recipients efficiently.

Trade bodies, associations and societies have to send out periodic newsletters to their members. In such cases, their requirements are very similar to those of online magazines. A single copy of the newsletter is sent out to all recipients in a timely manner.

Government departments need to send out circulars, notifications or statements to all registered companies, taxpayers, assessees, or other entities. Such mass communication is of two types: one-on-one messages or mailing list transmission. One-on-one messages involve sending a unique message to each recipient, like account statements of banks. Mailing list communication is where the same message goes to all recipients, like newsletters. Government departments have need for very large volumes of both types. Merce Broadside can deliver the message in both cases with equal ease.

Merce Broadside supports three types of mass messaging applications:

• Bulk mail applications: where each recipient gets his unique message
• Mailing list applications: where all recipients get copies of the same message
• Auto-responder applications: where recipients explicitly request for information

Bulk mail applications are used for one-on-one mass email transmission, for example where account statements are to be sent to account holders. In these applications, each message is unique and is meant for a unique recipient. All messages and their recipient email addresses are loaded into the Merce Broadside system and transmission initiated.

Mailing list applications are used for sending a single message to all recipients. Notifications to subscribers and online magazine broadcasts are examples of this. In such applications, the list of recipients is pre-loaded into the Merce Broadside database. Whenever a message is to be sent out to the recipients, it is loaded into the system, verified with some test transmissions, and then sent out to all recipients using one command from the administration console.

Auto-responder applications are used to allow outsiders to send email to specific email addresses configured within the Merce Broadside system, and pull out pre-defined responses. Unlike bulk mail and mailing list applications, an auto-responder application allows the recipient to pull responses out when needed. The same response is sent to all correspondents. The incoming mail received by the Merce Broadside system is forwarded to a pre-defined email address where possibly further human processing can be done and a customised second-level response can be sent manually.

A single Merce Broadside system can work with multiple instances of each of these application types. Each application instance can be controlled and operated independently and all can work in parallel. Together these three types of applications deliver a complete suite of solutions for mass messaging for an enterprise or academic campus.