“The Global Marketplace” is one of those over-used phrases that usually makes my skin crawl, especially on a Monday morning. But the fact is that use of the Web has made the concept a reality.

Much of our communications are through e-mail, and we, like many companies, often need to send out mass mailings. No, not SPAM. The legitimate kind.

While there are a huge number of applications out there that can handle the task, these can range anywhere from appallingly bad to slick and wonderful.

Mach5 Mailer is one of the good guys.

Mach5 Mailer lets you send personalised (or even personalized) e-mail to customers from any database, including Access and Excel, with conditional content, HTML, and attachments.

The conditional content is one of the features that sets it apart here. This can be used to make sure that the correct regional spellings are used, to include local information to specific users, or even to vary the tone to suit the audience.

Great for newsletters and announcements, you can also schedule your mailings for low bandwidth hours, or make sure that your timed announcement goes out exactly when you want.

Mach5 Mailer will run on any Windows 98, ME, XP or Windows 2000 with Internet access, and a free download version is available from the Mach5 Enterprises Web site. A free version of the software is also available.