Critical Path sold email as a hosted service years before anyone called that cloud computing. In 1999 email was becoming the most important application on the internet, and running it well was hard. Internet providers, phone companies, and large businesses needed mail servers that could handle millions of accounts without failing. Critical Path ran those servers for them. Customers kept their own brand, and Critical Path handled the storage and spam. It went public in March 1999.

Paid by the Mailbox

David Hayden founded Critical Path in San Francisco in 1997. The bet was that email was too important and too complex for most companies to run themselves. Critical Path built large data centers for mail and signed deals with carriers and portals. It was one of the first companies to sell email as a hosted service. Customers paid by the mailbox, so revenue grew with every new account.

A Scandal, Then Mergers

Critical Path priced its offering at $24 a share in March 1999, and the stock soared through 2000. In 2001 an accounting scandal forced restatements, and several former employees were later convicted. The company survived and shifted to selling messaging software to carriers. Its major shareholders took it private in 2008. In 2010 it merged with Mirapoint, and in 2013 Openwave Messaging bought the combined company.

Cover: A Stagecoach, Horace Vernet. Art Institute of Chicago, public domain. Chosen for a mail stagecoach on the road.