ne thing is certain about the proliferation of software based on Internet standards: Choices abound. Nowhere is that truer than in the messaging market. Three releases of mail servers based on the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol have shipped for Windows NT, with more on the way.
In May, Software.com Inc. of Santa Barbara, Calif., delivered Post. Office version 3.1, while Internet Shopper Ltd. of Clevedon, England, made NTMail version 3.02 available on its
Web site
for electronic purchase. On June 23
, Ipswitch Inc. in Lexington, Mass., is scheduled to deliver its IMail 4.0 server software for Windows NT.
These products deliver Internet standard messaging on Windows NT-at a fraction of the cost per user of Microsoft Exchange 5.0 and other enterprise mail products. Although all three get the job done, IMail is the best buy, striking a good balance among ease of use, functionality, and price.
Post.Office 3.1
Software.com shipped Post.Office version 3.1 just a month after release 3.0, primarily to add anti-spamming features. For example, the software lets administrators restrict external use of the server as a mail relay to other SMTP mail servers and provides "killfiles" to prevent delivery of E-mail from unwanted sources-by mail addresses, domains, or IP addresses.
Post.Office is available on both Windows NT and Unix. The binaries for all Post.Office's platforms ship on the same CD-ROM, and the product's documentation covers both operating systems. That was easy to do, since the adm
inistrative interfaces for both environments are the same-Web browser forms. The Web browser administrative interface, while serving its purpose, is fairly clunky.
Another drawback is Post.Office's lack of support for the Internet Mail Access Protocol 4 (IMAP4) or the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP). In fact, Post.Office has no connections to any directory service.
Post.Office can integrate with Windows NT's user database for mail security, but the only reason to do so is to keep user passwords for NT and Post. Office consistent. You can't create mail accounts from a list of registered NT users or create new NT users from Post.Office's Web interface.
Another integration with NT is Post.Office's powerful Program Delivery option. Administrators can configure a server to process incoming messages and send them to any application that can accept command-line parameters. Such programs could automatically archive mail or fax mail messages to a predefined phone number. But Software.com doesn
't provide any task-specific programs to get you started.
The easiest way to take advantage of this feature is with DOS-type batch command files. More powerful applications require programming expertise in tools such as C++ or Visual Basic.
Post.Office's best user feature is its mailing list capability. Mailing lists-essentially E-mail discussion groups-can be configured by the administrator; users can subscribe to topics that interest them through the user-configuration Web interface or by E-mailing subscription requests to the server. Lists can be configured so that incoming messages are immediately sent to list subscribers or accumulated into a digest sent out once a day.
IMail 4.0
Ipswitch's IMail has a much friendlier face than Post.Office. IMail's components install as Windows NT services and Control Panel components, with easy-to-use configuration dialogs and built-in monitoring of services. Installation is straightforward, as is the collection of administration tools.
IMail
's monitoring program can be configured to restart a service that locks up or crashes. The monitor can also watch, send alerts for, and restart other services like HTTP, News, and Domain Name Services. Alerts can be sent by E-mail, pager, or fax with a little configuration.
A single IMail server can handle multiple domains through NT's virtual host capability-multiple host names can be assigned to a single server. This means that IMail can be used by an Internet service provider supplying mail service to multiple organizations or by a company to consolidate E-mail for multiple registered Internet domains.
As with Post.Office, IMail can integrate with Windows NT's user database for logons. But IMail's integration goes further-it will automatically create a mail account for users in the NT user database the first time it receives an E-mail directed to that user or the first time that user logs in with a POP client.
IMail offers the most ways for users to get their mail-with the traditional POP clien
t, with an IMAP4 client, by Web browser through Ipswitch's Web Messaging option, or by fax or alphanumeric pager through IMail's fax-pager gateway. IMail is also the only product of the three that supports LDAP for looking up user mail accounts.
Ipswitch takes antispamming one step further than Software.com does by also providing server rules to route mail with specified words in the From, Sender, and Subject headers of the message to a system mailbox for later screening. Both administrators and users can configure rules for mail handling on the server.
IMail's built-in list server capabilities allow users to create mailing lists and no-maintenance discussion groups. Version 4.0 adds digest capability to the server and will attach text defined by the list owner to the Subject line in order to identify the message as part of the list.
NTMail 3.0
Internet Shopper's NTMail has a version for Windows 95 as well as Windows NT. All its configuration and administrative functions install as Con
trol Panel applications.
NTMail has many features in common with the other packages reviewed here, including antispamming functions, Web-based remote administration, and a list server. Like IMail, NTMail supports multiple domain hosting, rules-based mail routing, IMAP4 client access, and a fax gateway. Like Post.Office, it supports launching applications to process incoming messages.
But unlike Software.com, Internet Shopper provides in its software several shareware "robots"-applications launched by the mail server. An alphanumeric pager gateway robot, a UUencoded attachment decoder, and other robot utilities are available on the NTMail Web site, along with some applets that pass information to Visual Basic applications and Perl scripts.
For branch offices that don't have a persistent connection to the Internet or to the corporate office, NTMail supports an option for dial-up Internet access. The administrator can write a dial-up script that connects to an Internet provider or to the corporate E-
mail server periodically to send queued mail.
Another unique feature is NTMail's ability to run a virus scanner against incoming mail messages. A robot applet sends attachments to an external virus scanner; however, this works only with virus scanners that accept command-line parameters.
On the whole, NTMail delivers a lot of bang for the buck. But like Post.Office, its extensibility and power come at the expense of some ease of use. Many of NTMail's tuning parameters are manipulated by editing the system registry-not a task for the faint-hearted.
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ne thing is certain about the proliferation of software based on Internet standards: Choices abound. Nowhere is that truer than in the messaging market. Three releases of mail servers based on the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol have shipped for Windows NT, with more on the way.
