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otus Notes and Microsoft Exchange are not the only ways to get scalable electronic messaging on a Windows NT server. In fact, when it comes to plain old E-mail, there are more cost-effective options than the groupware leaders. Internet standards-based E-mail servers on NT are a viable messaging option for companies in which groupware use consists mainly of E-mail threads and mailing lists.

Recently, InformationWeek Labs and InternetWeek reviewed three E-mail servers based on Internet standards. For this article, I looked at another Internet mail contender still in beta testing: MailSite 3.4 from Rockliffe Systems Inc.

There are three versions of MailSite: MailSite Workgroup, Mailsite Department, and MailSite Enterprise. Rockliffe says the Enterprise version of the software can scale to up to 100,000 users on a single NT server.

While I didn't attempt to create 100,000 accounts, I found MailSite to be simple to administer and very intuitive if you have an NT administration background. Though the software lacks some features of other E-mail servers for NT--such as Web browser access to E-mail and built-in virus protection--they can be added through an add-on tool or with MailSite's programmable server agents.

Installing MailSite is easy enough for most computer users. MailSite can be installed side-by-side with Microsoft's Internet Information Server and other NT Server components.

The main administrative interface is MailSite Console, a 32-bit Windows utility. Console is similar to Microsoft Management Console applications in its layout, so NT administrators should take to it quickly.

MailSite supports three types of user authentication: "registry-based" authentication, NT authentication, and database authentication. For registry users, security is maintained by the MailSite application itself. The mail accounts and passwords can't be used to gain access to the operating system of the mail server. NT mailbox accounts use the NT user database for authentication.

Both registry and NT mailboxes can use either plain text passwords or secure password authentication, so passwords are encrypted across the wire. You'll want to use this feature for NT mailboxes, so NT passwords aren't transmitted in the clear.

Database mailboxes rely on an authentication database for user identification. MailSite integrates with the Emerald Radius authentication database, or it can use any Open Database Connectivity-compliant database configured with user information. This lets you integrate user accounts with other enterprise apps that don't use NT authentication.

For basic mail server management tasks, such mail-list configuration, there's an additional interface for administrators: a Java applet that runs in a Web browser. Users can also manage their own account settings through an HTML interface to the server. There's an add-on tool that integrates the server with Internet Information Server, allowing users to send and receive mail from a browser interface as well.

You can use MailSite as a host for multiple E-mail domains. Administration of users for each domain can be delegated to users assigned domain authority, and they can manage all aspects of their assigned domains through the Java interface.

One feature MailSite has that is missing from the competitors reviewed earlier is an integrated Lightweight Directory Access Protocol-accessible address book server. Users can browse and search an online address book via LDAP3 from most mail clients.

Potentially, the most powerful feature of MailSite is its most simple: its "agents" capability. Administrators can configure MailSite to launch any program from the command line as each E-mail message arrives. Using an agent configuration, you can integrate MailSite with a virus checker or create mail-driven server apps.

Finally, there's MailSite's mailing list feature. With it, you can configure mailing lists in a number of ways. For example, lists can be unmoderated, moderated, or distributed in digest form.

All in all, MailSite Enterprise is a solid product that meets the E-mail needs of most companies.