CIA pilots e-mail application

In-Q-Tel, a Central Intelligence Agency initiative that invests in companies with technologies the agency may use, has signed a licensing agreement with Zaplet Inc., Redwood Shores, Calif. The CIA will run pilots of the company's Appmail Suite, an e-mail collaborative application.

Zaplet was picked by In-Q-Tel because the software allows government and large commercial enterprises to use e-mail as a collaborative application development and deployment platform. The CIA is looking for the ability to deploy enterprise-class collaborative applications without installing or maintaining additional client-side software.

The value of the licensing agreement was undisclosed.