Dialcom Inc. was a US corporation which eveloped the world's first commercial electronic mail service. It was founded in 1970 by Robert F. Ryan and was sold to ITT Corporation in 1982, becoming ITT Dialcom. Dialcom's e-mail software ran on Prime minicomputers and was licensed to governmental telecommunications providers in over seventeen countries. Various extra features could be offered by Dialcom-based services, including gateways to telex and fax, and online information retrieval services. In 1986, British Telecom, who used Dialcom software for its Telecom Gold service, bought Dialcom from ITT.