Welcome Welcome

Welcome to the OpenMail™ Website!

 

What is OpenMail™ 

OpenMail™ Mission:  Physical Mailstream becomes a dynamic online marketplace that is mediated and enabled by web-based, information exchange.

Envision a world where mailers could request carrier products based on that they need to do and how they prefer to accomplish it. Carriers could create or customize services and announce these updated services. The  mailer's mailing system would automatically adapt as needed to help the mailer carry out the requirements needed for using their requested service.

The OpenMail™ program is a reframing of the Mailstream in the context of people, work, time, and place. It embraces user, developer, and service provider communities to collectively define and build a set of practices and standards for announcing, accessing, and using available Mailstream products and services in a simpler and more effective manner. OpenMail™ is an open architecture and technology platform that enables an enriched mail ecosystem that will transform how we think about and use mail, ultimately building to our vision, i.e., building to a dynamic online marketplace that is mediated and enabled by web-based, information exchange. 

Value for OpenMail™ Participants

OpenMail™ offers value to all Mailstream participants and provides an ecosystem that encourages innovations beyond the current participants. OpenMail™:

  • Enables Mailstream participants to more easily interact with one another using existing Mailstream interaction paradigms,

  • Enables new paradigms of interaction among participants and the Mailstream,

  • Provides a delivery mechanism for Mailstream services,

  • Creates new business opportunities (e.g., information brokers),

  • Creates business efficiencies – e.g., mailing system manufacturers and participants that collect and share Mailstream data.

Participant Roles

We have identified seven types of Mailstream participant roles that exist in today's Mailstream, though the list continues to evolve as new values for OpenMail™ are discovered. Note that a given participant may take on one or more of these roles. Our initial focus has been on mailers, carriers and equipment manufacturers. Our current list includes:

  • Mailers are those with a item to be sent. Today, they simply select and purchase a carrier product, though they may take more innovative roles in the future, e.g., actually helping craft carrier products, etc. Note, outsourced mail processing providers are considered a type of Mailer.

  • Carriers are the providers of "delivery" services and are responsible for moving the mail item from one place to another.

  • Recipients are the delivery targets of the items being sent. In current thinking they are indirect users of the Carrier product, but this thinking is likely to evolve as OpenMail enables more players to interact in richer ways. For example, recipients may have a more direct role in what is mailed and how it gets delivered.

  • Equipment Manufacturers are the creators of mailing systems to enable mailers to interact with the Mailstream in a more automated and cost effective manner.  

  • Equipment is the mailing systems that enable mailers and potentially recipients to interact with their mail and the Mailstream ecosystem.

  • Regulators are governmental/legal entities who may impose rules of engagement on the ecosystem. 

  • Third Party Service Providers are stakeholders who may vend services to OpenMail™, e.g., they may provide a carrier pricing service that other stakeholders may use.

Note: another stakeholder that is not yet represented are application developers. These are stakeholders who may integrate aspects of the Mailstream into their products, e.g., eBay may incorporate a shipping utility.

Interfaces

OpenMail™ started from an new UPU standard - EPPML. As OpenMail has continues to be developed, the need for new interfaces are being discovered. OpenMail™ now leverages the W3C Delivery Context Ontology interface Standard and new standards are being created.

Interfaces are being discovered in the context of building prototype applications. As new interfaces are indentified, they will be added to the list. At this time, all interfaces are defined using the W3C XML Schema technology though we are investigating methods that enable interfaces to move to Semantic Web technologies. Currently the Interfaces that have been identified are:

  • CPDF: an interface for describing carrier and postal products. This interface is complementary to the EPPML standard proposed Universal Postal Union (http://www.upu.int).

  • MSC: an interface that is based upon the W3C Delivery Context Ontology standards activity. It is a way for Mailing systems to describe their capabilities and so to enable more automated mapping of carrier products to mailing system equipment.

  • Rates: an interface that formalizes how pricing should be determined for a given product or product family. Instance documents are used to define the specifications of pricing engines that can be used by Mailstream participants when requesting pricing information on products.

  • Provisioning:  an interface that transforms product and rates information into description that is actionable by equipment. When mailing systems ingest a provisioning instance document, the system is adapted to be able to comply with restrictions and rules identified in product and rates documents and connect to external communication sources as noted in those documents.

Who We Are 

We are the Future Mail Technologies Team (FMT) - a multi-disciplinary research team at Pitney Bowes™, chartered with creating innovative solutions for the Mailstream. Our team of computer scientists, engineers, and anthropologists are currently developing new technologies to increase the value of mail.

We are building an OpenMail™ reference prototype to:

  • Vet ePPML and provide feedback back to the UPU,

  • Discover opportunities enabled by OpenMail™,

  • Reduce technical risk.

How We Work

The FMT team is building out the OpenMail™ infrastructure through an iterative prototype-based process. The infrastructure is then modified and if applicable the application is re-instantiated. This process lets the team work broadly during times of discovery, and focus more narrowly when we need to ensure that the concepts and technology details need to be fleshed out.

Why We Created this Site

The FMT team believes OpenMail™ needs to be truly open and it needs everyone's input to become successful. That is, OpenMail™ will only be meaningful in a business environment that embraces open standards. When possible, existing standards will be leveraged. When relevant standards do not yet exist, proposals for open standards will be offered. We want to use this website to help cultivate a community of users, developers, carriers, and equipment manufacturers who will help develop, vet and implement such OpenMail™ standards.

Currently this website is being geared towards application developers who might use the interfaces of OpenMail™. As standards and OpenMail™ technologies become adopted, we aim to also support those who use and benefit from applications that bring the Mailstream to life in the 21st century, including marketers, mailers, recipients, third party service providers, business development experts, etc.

The FMT team expects that this site will change as the needs of the OpenMail™ community grows and shifts. we're starting small, and welcome comments on how to improve what we have. Please let us know what you think about this site, and join us as we try to improve the Mailstream.  

 

 

Help by providing feedback .