Terry, > Terry Gray wrote: > In contrast, I suspect that most enterprises use either > Exchange/MAPI or an IMAP-based solution (and of course > Exchange also supports IMAP). This is not the picture that I see. I think that I would have made the same assumption you did (why bother using POP3 when your server supports IMAP) but that's not the way it works. In Enterprise networks using GroupWise or Notes or Exchange, a good 80% to 100% of the clients are using the client software that pairs with the server software. So there is a GroupWise client, a Notes client and there used to be an Exchange client but now everyone uses Outlook. This is the setup that the helpdesk can support. Although it might appear surprising, these other 10% or 20% of users that don't use the native client that came with the server software (for example, a Unix machine on an Exchange server, a Macintosh on a Notes server, or a user loosely related to the Enterprise located in the middle of nowhere) don't use IMAP but do use POP3, and I think it has to do mostly with IT not wanting to support fancy configurations and yes MAPI is fancy compared to POP3. The way IT typically sees these machines is that they are a major support pain. >From a manageability/supportability standpoint, it is not a good idea to configure an IMAP4 client to access an Exchange server when you can have Outlook. There are indeed some enterprises that have a Unix-based mail system accessed by the crowd of Windows clients; however I think these are massively over-representated in the IETF compared to the general population. Michel.