BlitzMail

BlitzMail was an e-mail system used at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, United States. It was one of the earliest e-mail server/client packages. It became instantly popular at the college as a result of its simplicity and power, appealing to even the most inexperienced users. To the dismay of many students and alumni of the College, use of BlitzMail ended in 2011, in favor of a Microsoft suite of email/online collaboration programs. The Dartmouth Name Directory will allegedly live on, however, and the new e-mail program is still referred to as "Blitz."

History

BlitzMail was developed by Dartmouth in 1987 and went live in the summer of 1988. BlitzMail is descended from this codebase.

The name BlitzMail started as a joke among its programmers, as it had to be developed quickly.

In 1991, when Dartmouth required every student to own a computer, the server code was updated to allow multiple servers to accommodate the heavy demand for the system. In 1993, the server was rewritten to support mail folders, a necessity. In 1994, the client and server software was released for use outside of Dartmouth. Some non-Dartmouth BlitzMail deployments include Valley.Net, an internet service provider in New England's Upper Valley region and, from 1991 to 2005, Reed College in Portland, Oregon.