BaleMail: Communication Simplified
BaleMail grew out of a problem in the cotton industry with data friction. Simply put, it is hard to move information between parties.
Whether it's a farmer trying to look at his grades, a warehouse seeking to import weights from a gin, or a merchant building a custom recap on a free list of cotton, everyone comes to the same crazy roadblock: your computer can't talk to theirs.
BaleMail can help.
What is it?
BaleMail is like specialized email for your data. It works perfectly with existing email, and helps ensure the data sent is readable for the recipient and their software. This is easier said than done, of course. Many new formats have been created with hope everyone will agree to use that one from now on. There are now tons of "standard" formats out there, and you can eventually find one that works for both parties. Eventually.
Magic?
If it sounds too good to be true, you're not wrong. It isn't magic--it takes some work. The magic behind the system is our library of "dataports", which are the special recipes that define how to read each format. The good news: if your favorite format isn't in our library, you can build a dataport using our free tools and submit it to be added to the library. Once approved, BaleMail can read and write your format, so everyone can use it.
How much?
Maybe you noticed that word "free"? Well, it's free! A system like this needs a lot of people using it to really be useful, so we're giving it away. We'll have new features down the road to make some money, but we always want our core features to be free for normal use. In fact, a lot of our tools can be used without even having to sign up.
How's that for easy?
Simply put, our approach is different. We've built a system that can read tons of formats automatically, and convert them to other formats. Now you don't have to agree on a format to send it to someone; you just have to send a format that BaleMail can handle. We'll convert it to something they can read.
Not Just For Cotton
Other industries have similar problems. While we're currently focusing on cotton, our system is completely flexible and can serve new industries just by adding new dataports. Contact us for more information.
Technicalities
BaleMail works on flat files, both fixed-width and delimited (such as CSV or tab-separated). It auto-recognizes data using the dataports in its library, or allows a user to select the format they desire. It offers significant error-checking to ensure pure conversions and provides lots of feedback to help track down problems translating files or formats.
Coming Soon
BaleMail is under construction. Keep checking in for updates as we expand our services.