FERRIS E-MAIL UPDATE pc-centric analysis & practical insight for e-mail professionals

October 1, 1992. Volume 1, Number 3

Support For The Traveling User

Editor's Bit News Highlights When e-mail users travel, they need to pick up and send their E-Mail Gets Built-In EDI. Mainframe messages, even though they're out of the office. e-mail vendor Verimation added EDI support to its Memo package. With mainframe and mini e-mail systems, this is usually It's the first e-mail vendor to do this. simple. Take PROFS, for example. You can probably access Contact Adam Sroczynski at your mailbox from a 3270 in any company office. Verimation on (201) 767 4795. It's harder with PC systems. Mail is usually stored at the cc:Mail Rules Processing. Lotus/cc:Mail home office—not in some central mainframe. You probably demonstrated rules processing can't log into your home office network from a remote office. capabilities—similar to that of Plus the mail system at the office you're visiting may be BeyondMail—at the cc:Mail user different from the one you habitually use. group conference. Planned release is Various technologies are used to stitch things up. This issue early 1993. Contact cc:Mail at (800) investigates what's available, and attempts to give practical 448-2500. insight for people grappling with the problems. cc:Mail Will Have X.400 MTA. David Ferris Lotus/cc:Mail announced it will have a native X.400 version of cc:Mail in late 1993. Contact cc:Mail at (800) 448-2500. All About Traveling Users cc:Mail For Unix Debuts. Basic Jargon...... 2 Lotus/cc:Mail announced they will Case Study. American Management Systems has 3,200 ship a Sun Unix version of cc:Mail mailboxes and its staff constantly move around the globe..... 3 by the end of September. Contact cc:Mail at (800) 448-2500. Enabling Technologies. Eight implementation methods ...... 7 Microsoft Publicizes Windows NT Requirements Checklist. The major things to check while Based MTA. Microsoft started planning support...... 9 promoting an X.400 MTA. The Products. A survey of major offerings, from AT&T, Beyond, Enterprise Messaging Server is in Da Vinci, Infinite Technologies, Lotus/cc:Mail, MCI, alpha, runs under Windows NT, Microsoft, and Novell...... 10 and is slated for mid-1993 release. Future Outlook. Ways life will improve for users and support Contact Microsoft at (800) 227- staff...... 18 4679. Vendor Contacts...... 19 Bibliography ...... 19 Other News ...... 22 ______

Ferris E-Mail Update is published by Ferris Networks, 353 Sacramento Street #600, San Francisco, CA 94111. Tel (415) 986-1414. $395/year, single copies $45. Reprints, consulting, and seminars also available. The title Ferris E- Mail Update is a trademark of Ferris Networks. Nothing that appears in Perris E-Mail Update may be reproduced in whole or in part without the permission of Ferris Networks. 1992 Perris Networks, Inc. All rights reserved. The material contained in Ferris E-Mail Update is based on information Ferris Networks believes is reliable, but its accuracy and completeness cannot be guaranteed. No liability is assumed for the use of any materials presented in Ferris E-Mail Update, nor for any errors or omissions which may remain. Basic Jargon First, some basic jargon you need to know: Message Store A directory or set of directories in a file server which stores mail messages for a group of users. MTA, or Message Transfer Agent For the purposes of this paper, an MTA is a DOS PC which has a program in it which routes messages from message store to message store. It usually transfers these over dialup links with asynchronous modems, or an internetwork connection. cc:Mail's MTA program is called Gateway which is unfortunate because it isn't an e-mail gateway at all. Microsoft Mail's MTA program is called External. NetWare MHS' MTA is called the Transport Server. Remote Client A PC program which uses a modem and dialup phone lines to call into an MTA and pick up or send messages. Typically remote client software runs in a travelling laptop although it could easily be in a PC at someone's home, or a PC in a small office. The program lets you prepare and reply to messages off-line. When you want to pick up messages or send messages you've prepared, you give a simple command and the software automatically dials up the main e-mail network. It automatically downloads mail you've prepared and picks up messages waiting for you. It then disconnects. Most PC e-mail systems have a remote client. See page 16 for an indepth discussion of how a remote client works. Internetwork An internetwork of PCs is where every PC and file server looks to the user as if they are all on one network. Wherever you are, you can log in to your file server, redirect output to your printer, and so on. This is so even if the network contains WAN links. Internetwork connections make life very simple for an MTA. To connect to a remote message store, it just has to log into the file server concerned, pick a free logical drive—say H:—and assign the message store to H:. The MTA doesn't have to worry about how the connection is made, other system software does this.

Ferris E-Mail Update, October 1, 1992. 1992 Ferris Networks, Inc. All rights reserved. Not to be reproduced without permission. For subscriptions ($395/year), 2 reprints , consulting, seminars contact FM, 353 Sacramento Street #600, San Francisco, CA 94111. Tel (415) 986-1414. Case Study: American Management Systems American Management Systems is a systems integration firm with 3,200 employees who move constantly. The firm does applications development, often with its own software packages. Customers include banks; federal, state, and local government; colleges and universities; and telecommunications companies. All staff use e-mail extensively. They move from project to project and from office to office. Roughly half are at corporate headquarters in Arlington, VA. Others are based in offices throughout the US and internationally. Some of the offices are located at customer sites. There are a few e-mail connections to important suppliers who need fast communications, such as AMS' PR firm. Although staff move around frequently, they are almost always based out of an AMS office. AMS has standardized on cc:Mail. Their internetwork mainly runs NetWare, with Decnet, Lan Manager, and TCP/IP also represented.

Figure 1 AMS E-MAIL NETWORK

S00101 S08101 London MS 11 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

International + Remote Client MTA

Main US MTA COASTER AMS-MAIL .7.6 International MTAs

11111111111111111111111111111

New York Denver Frankfurt MS 9 US Branches All On NetWare Internetwork 17 Message Stores

14 Message Stores At Arlington HQ

27 Dialin Laptops

Ferris E-Mail Update, October 1, 1992. 1992 Ferris Networks, Inc. All rights reserved. Not to be reproduced without permission. For subscriptions ($395/year), reprints, consulting, seminars contact FNI, 353 Sacramento Street #600, San Francisco, CA 94111. Tel (415) 986-1414. Requirements AMS has three types of traveling e-mail users: • Temporary Relocations. These are mostly consultants who go to work at a different office for a project. Projects typically last between three months and two years. Their home office mail needs to be redirected to the new location. • Inter-Office Travelers. Some people, especially managers, move between offices on a daily basis. They need to be able to pick up their mail whatever office they're in. • Permanent Travelers. Twenty-seven people—mostly sales reps—spend 90% or more of their time traveling. They don't really have any home office and need to be able to pick up mail from anywhere, such as hotels and customer or prospect sites.

System Design MTAs One MTA does most of the work. This is CCMASTER, a DOS PC at the Arlington headquarters that runs cc:Mail's Gateway program. If you're not familiar with cc:Mail, don't be confused—Gateway isn't an e-mail gateway, it simply transfers messages between message stores. CCMASTER is responsible for sending all messages between different users in the US. There's another important MTA at Arlington, AMS-MAIL, which is responsible for routing messages between offices in different countries. AMSMAIL also serves the 27 permanent travelers, who use remote client software and dialin lines to connect. Their mail is kept in a message store controlled by AMS-MAIL. To be precise, AMS-MAIL is actually five PCs. Four of them are dedicated to incoming calls from other MTAs. The other just does dialout. Message Stores Each user's message store is kept on some file server. There are 14 file servers in Arlington, with names like "S00101" and "S08101". As just noted, AMSMAIL at Arlington also controls a special message store for laptop-based users. There are a further 17 messages stores in the US, located at 9 branches. Each international branch also has its own message store. WAN Connections All US offices are on one internetwork. In other words, they are all connected over WAN links in such a way that the whole thing looks like just one network. For example, wherever you are, you can log into any server and send output to any printer on the internetwork.

Ferris E-Mail Update, October 1, 1992. 1992 Ferris Networks, Inc. All rights reserved. Not to be reproduced without permission. For subscriptions ($395/year), reprints , 4 consulting, seminars contact FM, 353 Sacramento Street #600, San Francisco, CA 94111. Tel (415) 986-1414. International offices have no permanent WAN connections. For e-mail transfers, each has an MTA which dials up (or is dialed by) AMS-MAIL periodically. If you're in an office with no internetwork connection to your home office, it's still possible to connect. AMS uses PC AnyWhere, which lets a PC user control another PC over dialup lines. Anything you type in is typed in at the other PC, and anything displayed on the other PC's screen shows up on your screen. It's like terminal emulation into the other PC, over dialup phone lines. In this way, you can dial into a remote network and run programs just as if you are physically on the network. AMS uses PC AnyWhere to run a variety of remote applications, of which e-mail is one. Message Flow All messages pass through one of two hubs. US messages go through CCMASTER. International messages go through AMS-MAIL. Messages between the US and an international location go through both MTAs. How the systems works is as follows. Suppose an Arlington user has their local message store on file server S00101. They create a message and the cc:Mail software in their PC dumps it into S00101. If the recipient's message store is also in S00101, the message stays there until picked up. Now suppose the recipient is attached to a different message store in Arlington; say this is on file server 508101. CCMASTER is on the same LAN as the two file servers, and it periodically scans them. On one of these scans of S00101, it notices the new message, picks it up, and puts it in 508101. The message is now ready to be picked up. Now suppose the message is to be sent from 500101 to another US office, say to a recipient in New York. CCMASTER picks the message up as before, and transfers it to the New York message store. As far as CCMASTER is concerned, the link to the destination message store in New York as easy as a link to an Arlington message store—it simply logs into the New York server concerned. So for transfers within the US that go between two different message stores, CCMASTER does it all. Now let's consider international transfers. Suppose someone in London wants to send a message to someone in Frankfurt. The message is put in their local message store. Periodically AMS-MAIL in Arlington and the London MTA establish a dialup link. On the next link the message is shipped to Arlington. When AMS-MAIL later connects to the Frankfurt MTA, again via dialup, the message is transferred to its destination message store. Finally, consider a transfer between New York and Frankfurt. The message is picked up by CCMASTER. It's then routed to AMS-MAIL; and then to Frankfurt.

Ferris E-Mail Update, October 1, 1992. A 1992 Ferris Networks, Inc. All rights reserved. Not to be reproduced without permission. For subscriptions ($395/year), reprints, consulting, seminars contact FNI, 353 Sacramento Street #600, San Francisco, CA 94111. Tel (415) 986-1414. 5 Support For Travelers Temporary Relocations Consultants who move offices to work on projects are accommodated as follows. First, a new mailbox is created for them at their new office. The directory at their old office is then updated so that mail for them is routed on to CCMASTER. If the move is simply between US offices, the routing table at CCMASTER must be altered to reflect the new account. If the move is between international offices, AMS-MAIL's routing tables must be updated. If the person moves between the US and an international location, both CCMASTER and AMS-MAIL must be updated. Updates of routing tables, creation of the new mailbox, and deletion of the old one is done centrally and doesn't take long. Inter-Office Travelers Now consider the managers who move between offices on a daily basis. They're in good shape if their home office is in the US and if they need to pick up mail from another US office. Because everyone is on the internetwork, and because every office uses the same e-mail software, they simply log in to their home server and run mail, just as if they were at the home office. If they're traveling internationally and need to pick up mail, this doesn't work. Instead, they run PC AnyWhere at the office they're visiting, and dial into their home network or internetwork. They then log in, process their mail, and log off, at which time the dialup connection ceases. Permanent Travelers Finally, what about the sales reps who travel constantly? They all have laptops and use the cc:Mail Remote Client. This program lets them prepare messages and reply to messages off-line. When they give the command, cc:Mail Remote dials into AMS-MAIL. Their home message store is controlled by AMSMAIL, and AMS-MAIL checks whether any mail has arrived for them. If so, it is transmitted down to the user's laptop. Any messages to be sent from the laptop are uploaded to AMS-MAIL and its message store, and are then routed onwards to their recipients. The dialup link then disconnects. These people can connect wherever they are. For international locations it takes a call that's expensive on a per-minute basis, but the duration is usually between 30 seconds and two minutes.

Ferris E-Mail Update, October 1, 1992. 6 0 1992 Ferris Networks, Inc. All rights reserved. Not to be reproduced without permission. For subscriptions ($395/year), reprints , consulting, seminars contact FM, 353 Sacramento Street #600, San Francisco, CA 94111. Tel (415) 986-1414. Implementation Issues According to Craig Lightle, Manager of Network Technical Services at AMS, the system meets the needs of traveling users well. He has several observations for companies who intend to adopt a similar solution. Centralize Administration Routing Hubs Do all moves and changes centrally. It makes arranging for mail forwarding much simpler. Also, try to service as many message stores as you can with a given routing hub. The fewer hubs you have, the fewer routing tables must be changed when someone moves. PC AnyWhere Costs Users don't like the PC AnyVVhere approach for picking up mail. The line charges are high because the link must be up while the user logs in, reads their messages, prepares messages, and finally logs off. Because the line is up, users also feel harried when they want to do something else mid-session. Internetwork Use The solution people like best is to log in to their home server over the internetwork. Use this wherever it's practical. Voice Integration AMS makes heavy use of voice mail. Looking ahead, Lightle expects the voice mail system to integrate with e-mail. "It would be great if people could check their voice mail and hear 'There are three e-mail messages waiting for you. Press 1 if you want to hear their subject lines' ... then people could get summary information on their messages, and know whether to get out their laptops and dial in." He hopes to have something in place by year's end. Small Offices In offices with as few as five users, Lightle believes it can make sense to put in an e-mail PC. This doubles as user workstation and MTA which does dialup to the rest of the system. To send a message, users run the e-mail client. Periodically they run the MTA in the same machine to send and receive mail. This can quickly work out cheaper than having five users dialing in separately, or making excessive use of overnight couriers. Enabling Technologies Here we describe eight methods by which you can support the traveling user. Internetwork Login This is the easiest for users. They simply log in to their home file server and run mail in the usual way. To do this, you will probably need to run the same network operating system—Lan Manager, NetWare, Vines etc.— at all offices on the internetwork. The existence of electronic connections isn't enough. Many companies have a WAN in place connecting up their offices. Trouble is, this doesn't mean you

Ferris E-Mail Update, October 1, 1992. Co 1992 Ferris Networks, Inc. All rights reserved. Not to be reproduced without permission. For subscriptions ($395/year), reprints, consulting, seminars contact FNI, 353 Sacramento Street #600, San Francisco, CA 94111. Tel (415) 986-1414. 7 have an internetwork. For example, suppose all your offices are connected via an SNA network. Chances are one office can't log into another office. Remember, an internetwork means everything has to look like a single network from the user's perspective. Remote Client A very attractive technology. It's inexpensive because phone links are only used briefly, plus users can prepare and reply to mail at their own pace, being interrupted whenever they want. Unattractive to non-laptop types, though. Laptop Sign Out A variant of the remote client. When someone goes traveling, you loan them a laptop with remote client software, and configure the software to dial into their home network. Remote Control Like AMS' use of PC AnyWhere. Here the user runs a special program such as PC AnyVVhere or Carbon Copy to dial into a PC at their home office or at an office connected to their home office by an internetwork. Having established the connection, the user controls the remote PC through terminal emulation. What they type in is typed in at the remote PC. What shows up on the remote PC's screen is displayed on the user's PC. The user logs in, picks up and processes mail, and logs off. Then the phone link is severed. There are other variants of this technology such as the Chatterbox, Cubix boxes, and the NetWare Access Server, all of which are excellent implementation vehicles. Remote Shell These are products like Microsoft's Remote Access Service. They let a PC dial into a remote network and then it behaves just like a directly attached PC. All packets sent to the user (from a file server, say) are downloaded over the phone line and reassembled at the user's PC. When the user PC communicates with other network resources, the packets it generates are sent over the phone link to the office LAN, where they are reassembled and then transmitted to their destination. This is an elegant and architecturally pure way of connecting. The big problem is line speed. If you use this to pick up mail, the response time can quickly become unacceptably slow. Chances are you won't use this approach until message stores have the ability to do some client/server processing. Forward To New Mailbox Some e-mail systems let you specify that an arriving mail message should be forwarded to another mailbox. So if a person moves offices for some period of time, you can create a new mailbox for them at their new location, and tell the e-mail system to forward messages on. cc:Mail's Alias facility provides this, as do Da Vinci's Assistant and Infinite Technologies' ForwardlT! Among public services, AT&T Mail and MCI Mail provide forwarding.

Ferris E-Mail Update, October 1, 1992. ®1992 Ferris Networks, Inc. All rights reserved. Not to be reproduced without permission. For subscriptions ($395/year), reprints , consulting, seminars contact FNI, 353 Sacramento Street #600, San Francisco, CA 94111. Tel (415) 986-1414. Forward To Public E-Mail Service Here, you take advantage of the widespread availability of some public e-mail systems. For example, CompuServe's e-mail has access points throughout the world. You could forward a user's mail to a public e-mail carrier through a gateway. They could then dial in to the service through a local access point. The problem with this approach is that the user will likely have to know the user interface of the public e-mail service in addition to their usual e-mail interface. Forward To Mailbox-In-The-Sky Another option is to take advantage of an in-house e-mail system which is available everywhere. Take PROFS as an example. In this scenario, every user has a PROFS "mailbox-in-the-sky" in addition to one in their usual e-mail system. When they're traveling, you forward mail to their PROFS mailbox, which then by hypothesis can be accessed at any office. So suppose a company has a series of different e-mail systems at different offices. A cc:Mail user goes traveling and passes through offices with a happy mix of PROFS, Microsoft Mail, Wang Office, All-In-1, and HP Desk. The common denominator is PROFS, however. So at each office, the user simply finds a 3270 and logs in. As before, the user must learn a new interface, so the approach won't work for many people. Requirements Checklist In this section, we present a list of the major things to consider while planning support for the traveling e-mail user. Internetwork Access? If the user is moving around a lot, will they be able to log into their home server over an internetwork? If so, the problem's solved. Relocation? Is the user relocating for at least a month? If so, aim to create a mailbox for them at their new location, and forward mail to it. Laptop User? Does the user always carry around a laptop? If so, they can use remote client software within their country. If they are more technical and can fiddle with bits and bytes, they can also probably weather the vicissitudes of international dialup connections. If you're concerned about dial back security, however, even the most technical user is likely to give up.

Ferris E-Mail Update, October 1, 1992. ®1992 Ferris Networks, Inc. All rights reserved. Not to be reproduced without permission. For subscriptions ($395/year), reprints, consulting, seminars contact FNI, 353 Sacramento Street #600, San Francisco, CA 94111. Tel (415) 986-1414. 9 If the user isn't a habitual laptop user, would they be prepared to use a loaner? Remote client modems should be brand name devices, as standard and commonplace as possible. Avoid "compatible" brands because there are usually small differences which require nasty changes to the modem control scripts. The little you save in product cost is rapidly eaten up in user time, lost opportunity time, and technical support time. Hayes 2400 modems are the best in this regard. Fax Output? If forwarding is allowed, the user might have messages forwarded to a fax number. Administration Involved? Do technical people have to arrange for mail to follow the user? Or can the user give simple commands to manage this? If technical people have to make configuration changes, it's hard to service users who are moving quickly from place to place. Selective Forwarding? If forwarding is supported, should all mail be forwarded? Or should only mail meeting certain criteria be forwarded, while other mail should be processed differently? For example, perhaps urgent messages should be forwarded, while all other messages should go to the user's assistant with a copy being placed in the user's mailbox. Standard User Interface? If many different mail systems are in use at your company, would the user mind if they had to use another e-mail system to pick up their messages? If so, you might try the "mailbox-in-the-sky" approach, or forwarding to a public email service. Product Offerings

AT&T Mail/MCI Mail Both of these public e-mail carriers can automatically forward mail to a different address. Other carriers, notably SprintMail (also known as TeleMail) and CompuServe have yet to offer the capability. How They Work Take MCI Mail's facilities as an example. To forward mail, you type "CREATE AUTOFORWARD" at the interactive prompt. You are then asked the start and end dates, and the forwarding address. During the specified period, mail is then forwarded and a copy is left in your mailbox. Normally, mail is forwarded to another MCI Mail mailbox, to an X.400 address, or to a fax machine. You can also send it to telex or have a hard copy delivered to a postal address.

Ferris E-Mail Update, October 1,1992. ©1992 Ferris Networks, Inc. All rights reserved. Not to be reproduced without permission. For subscriptions ($395/year), 10 reprints, consulting, seminars contact FM, 353 Sacramento Street #600, San Francisco, CA 94111, Tel (415) 986-1414. There's no selective forwarding (for example, just forward my urgent messages, or messages sent to me by my boss). Either everything is forwarded, or nothing is. There seem to be three main ways of using MCI Mail's autoforwarding, all of which have confidentiality problems: • Autoforward all mail to a fax or telex number that the user will be at later. • Autoforward all mail to someone else's mailbox, so the user can pick it up later. The redirected mailbox might be an X.400 address, or a PC e- mail system tightly connected to MCI MAIL using the "REMS" facility. • Autoforward all mail to an assistant or co-worker, who can then act on messages accordingly. Selected messages can be faxed to the user, or forwarded to a third party where the user can read it later. Pricing A typical message (up to 500 characters) costs $.50. The cost to forward a message is the same as the cost to send a message. In other words, by the time an up-to-500-character message has been forwarded, the sender will have paid $.50, and the recipient an additional $.50.

BeyondMail BeyondMail is an e-mail package that also contains a scripting language for the processing of e-mail. This language is known as BeyondRules. With it, a skilled user or e-mail administrator can define forwarding logic of arbitrary complexity. A simple example is shown in figure 2. Here, all arriving messages are sent on to the user's remote address. Figure 3 shows a slightly more complex example. All urgent messages (having first been put in the urgent folder by another rule) are forwarded, together with an explanatory note.

Figure 2 BEYONDMAIL FORWARDING

Event: New Message Form: Phone Message Folder: Inbox if true then forward message to "MyRemote";

Ferris E-Mail Update, October 1, 1992. 0 1992 Ferris Networks, Inc. All rights reserved. Not to be reproduced without permission. For subscriptions ($395/year), reprints, consulting, seminars contact FNI, 353 Sacramento Street #600, San Francisco, CA 94111. Tel (415) 986-1414. 11 BEYONDMAIL FORWARDING URGENT MAIL

Event: New Message Form: (Any type) Folder: Urgent if true then forward message to "MyRemote" with text "Urgent mail forwarded to you by your On The Road agent.";

Figure 4 gives a feel for the full power of BeyondRules. This replies to a formatted message called "Request Form". Whenever the Action Requested field is "Action", "Approve", "Assistance", or "Decision", this rule sends an automatic reply to the sender and cc'd mailboxes, along with the recipient's itinerary. A special rules processing package executes such rules while the user is away— this normally runs either in a Windows client, or in a NetWare MHS MTA. Users can activate rules like this while traveling, simply by sending a mail message to the message processor.

Figure 4 BEYONDMAIL REPLYING WITH ITINERARY

Event: New Message Form: Request Form Folder: Inbox if ((From Agent] = false) and ([Action Requested] = "Action " or (Action Requested] = "Approve" or [Action Requested] = "Assistance" or (Action Requested] = "Decision") then create message as ReplyMsg; set [To] on ReplyMsg to [From]; set [Cc] on ReplyMsg to (Cc]; set [Subject] on ReplyMsg to "Re: " & (Subject]; I set (Text on ReplyMsg to "I just received your message itineraryregarding is>" below.& (Sub Tanks.ect) & "< . I'm out of the office and my ; insert file "c:\itinry.txt" into ReplyMsg; send ReplyMsg;

Ferris E-Mail Update, October 1, 1992. 0 1992 Ferris Networks, Inc. All rights reserved. Not to be reproduced without permission. For subscriptions (5395/year), reprints , 12 consulting, seminars contact FM, 353 Sacramento Street #600, San Francisco, CA 94111. Tel (415) 986-1414. cc:Mail cc:Mail has remote client software. It also has an Alias capability that can be used to forward a user's mail to another mailbox. Normally, you define a new mailbox at the new user location. You then update the old workgroup directory, giving it the new mailbox address and setting an "Alias" switch. Arriving mail is then automatically forwarded. A nice feature of cc:Mail MTA's and remote client is that they can use X.25 communications. This means a single modem on the MTA can service a series of concurrent incoming sessions. You don't need a bank of modems or rack of different machines each of which has a modern. Filtering Cr Rules Processing At its recent user group conference in September 1992, cc:Mail showed an alpha version of more intelligent forwarding capabilities. Messages can be forwarded based on boolean selection criteria. Karl Wong, cc:Mail Product Manager, says they will also support some form of rules processing. This will allow you to specify things like "While I'm gone, put news messages into my NEWS folder, send urgent messages to my assistant, and fax the rest to me on such-and-such number". In short, cc:Mail will be getting BeyondMail functions. They will avoid the use of special scripting languages such as that of BeyondMail, preferring instead to use a generic scripting language such as .BAT file logic. Lotus plans to release its filtering and rules processing in late 4Q92, and February 1993 at the latest. This will work with the cc:Mail Windows client.

Da Vinci Assistant The Assistant works with NetWare MHS e-mail packages like BeyondMail, Da Vinci eMAIL, Infinite Technologies' ExpresslT!, Futurus' Team, and Notework. It provides three services: mail forwarding, "answering machine", and "Reminder". Forwarding This allows users to request that incoming e-mail be automatically re-routed to an alternate address or addresses until a specified date. Answering Machine This automatically responds to incoming e-mail, with a message defined by the user in advance. The message might contain information such as when they will return, who mail is being forwarded to, or alternate contact information. The most common use is to notify correspondents that you can't get back to them right away.

Ferris E-Mail Update, October 1, 1992. ®1992 Ferris Networks, Inc. All rights reserved. Not to be reproduced without permission. For subscriptions ($395/year), reprints, consulting, seminars contact FNI, 353 Sacramento Street #600, San Francisco, CA 94111. Tel (415)986-1414. 13 Figure 5 111111MINNIIII DA VINCI ASSISTANT AUTO ANSWER

To: assist {Answer Until 10/31/91} Subject: Sorry, I'm not in I'll be out of the office until 10/31/91. If you need help right away, please contact EDAN. -Pete

Reminder This can send a message to any address or addresses on a pre-determined date. For example, it can be used to create tickler messages reminding oneself of an upcoming meeting, or reminding others that monthly reports are due. User Interface Users control Assistant services by sending a mail message to a mail address called "Assist". The message contains special keywords that are put in the destination address, the subject header, or the body of the message. Figure 5 shows a request to answer incoming mail automatically. The key words "Answer Until 10/31/91" could also be put at the beginning of the message body if the user preferred. This approach works with any MHS mail application, since they share the same addressing syntax. Figure 6 summarizes the three different Assistant commands, and their associated syntax.

Figure 6 DA VINCI ASSISTANT COMMAND SUMMARY

, w . -,, r iw WC& . ,. 'l'; *MINS" ''.* 0 APROWOr ' 1$m Forward Forward To address(es) Until mm/dd/yy , ; :;:,

Stop Forward NA Answer Answer Until mm/dd/yy ‹Speci4 , (,,Oodytext, ... Stop Answer , :NAB...:': . , :

Reminder Reminder On mm/dd/yy Specify subject Stop Reminder On mm/dd/yy SpeCilyaubject Status :, Status > Help Help NA

Ferris E-Mail Update, October 1, 1992. 14 e 1992 Ferris Networks, Inc. All rights reserved. Not to be reproduced without permission. For subscriptions ($395/year), reprints, consulting, seminars contact PHI, 353 Sacramento Street #600, San Francisco, CA 94111. Tel (415) 986-1414. Future Directions Da Vinci is quite far advanced in the forwarding field. In early September 1992 we received a preliminary copy of a new version. It includes some nice extra features: • A status service, which lets you know what forwarding options have been set. • Filtering, which lets users and administrators define what mail should be forwarded, and what mail should not be forwarded. The implementation appears a little crude—.BAT-like commands which are put into an ASCII file and deposited in the message store. Infinite Technologies' ForvvardITI ForwardIT! works with NetWare MHS e-mail packages like BeyondMail, Da Vinci eMAIL, Infinite Technologies' ExpresslT!, Futurus' Team, and Notework. Forwarding products like ForwardTT! and Da Vinci Assistant are particularly important in the world of NetWare MHS e-mail. The problem is that NetWare MHS has little concept of a remote client. If a user has an a mailbox on their office LAN, and also owns a laptop PC, they need to have two mailboxes: one on the LAN, the other on their laptop PC. This introduces some complexities which we shall not discuss here. ForwardlT! is particularly strong for users who switch frequently between their office PC and a laptop. The user interface is a DOS pop-up, shown in figure 7. When they use their laptop, users can forward mail with Forward177 to another MHS address. For example, DFERRIS@FNIHQ might forward his mail to DFERRIS@DFREMOTE. Users can indicate whether or not a copy should be kept, and whether or not to forward while they are logged into the office network. A message can be forwarded to multiple MRS addresses.

Figure 7 .ter„ _____ FORWARDIT! USER POP-UP

ForwardIT! v1.04 Forward/Copy Mail Options for DFERRIS

Forward messages? (Y/N) Y

Forward even when DFERRIS is logged in locally? (Y/N) N

Forward/Copy messages to:

c=Ca FlO=Save hanges

Ferris E-Mail Update, October 1, 1992. ®1992 Ferris Networks, Inc. All rights reserved. Not to be reproduced without permission. For subscriptions ($395/year), reprints, consulting, seminars contact FM, 353 Sacramento Street #600, San Francisco, CA 94111. Tel (415) 986-1414. 15 Microsoft Mail

Remote Client Microsoft offers a typical remote client. It serves three classes of user: • Microsoft Mail users on a LAN who need to communicate with the office e-mail system when they're traveling • Users who are permanently located away from a LAN-based MS Mail system • Portable PC users. Using it, you do pretty much everything you could do if you were directly connected to the main office LAN—browse user addresses, prepare a message, read incoming messages, and so on. When you've prepared a message, you give the "dial" command (figure 8). Your PC then calls the LAN-based MTA. It transfers the message down to your office message store. If mail has arrived for you, this mail is then downloaded to your PC. The phone link is then severed and you stop incurring line charges.

Figure 8 MS MAIL REMOTE CLIENT

Compose

Edit Print Queue Storage no Clear Edit text using cursor keys

The sales figures for the first quarter have now been released and show a favorable increase over the same tine period last year. It looks like this will be a very profitable year for us. Please examine the attached budget file as well as our performance over the last three months to determine the appropriate sales targets for the second quarter. Consolidated Monthly Sales and Expenses SALES January February March Total Eastern Region 16.780 15,508 14,958 47,158 Central Region 25,488 26,580 21,968 73,888 Western Region 19,858 18,758 17,400 55,200 Total 61,150 68,758 54,258 176,158 Let's all keep up the good work!

JP Henry VP Sales

In short, most of the time you're working with e-mail, you're off-line. Connections are only necessary to pick up and send mail. Typical connections last 30 seconds to 2 minutes. Obviously, if someone's sent you a half- megabyte file and you're working with a 2400 baud modem, the transmission will take around 45 minutes. Dialup connections are usually configured by technical staff (figure 9). Special scripts will likely be required to go through PBXs, use a different common carrier, use a credit card, and so on. We'll spare you the gruesome details but suffice it to say that like all communications control languages, few users will want to fiddle with them.

Ferris E-Mail Update, October 1, 1992. @ 1992 Ferris Networks, Inc. All rights resolved. Not to be reproduced without permission. For subscriptions ($395/year), 16 reprints , consulting, seminars contact FNI, 353 Sacramento Street #600, San Francisco, CA 94111. Tel (415) 986-1414. Forwarding You can't forward mail with Microsoft Mail. This cuts down your support options a lot.

Figure 9 CONFIGURING MS MAIL

Configure Ulte= Humber Serial &dial Delay SCript Enter/Modify paasuord of your postoffice

Network: BRAMON14 Paasword: CNNCTBCH Postoffice: SLS Phone number: 111-2222 Serial: Saud Rate: MOS Dialing Mode: Touch tone Comm. Port) COM1: Options: Radial attempts before failure: 0 Failed connection radial delay: 1 (minutes)

Scrip

NetWare Global Messaging NGM provides autoforwarding to one or more recipients. It's done by creating a file called FORWARD.SMF in the users' mail directory. The file contains a key word ("Forward-To") followed by the address of one or more alternate recipients, as shown in figure 10.

Figure 10 NGM AUTOFORWARD FILE

Forward-To: Jane [email protected], Jack [email protected]

In the example, messages are forwarded to both Jane Doe and Jack Smith. When a message is forwarded, a copy is saved for the original recipient. To stop autoforwarding, FORWARD.SMF is renamed or deleted. NGM runs in a NetWare server running NetWare v3.11 or higher. It will forward mail prepared by any MHS client software, such as BeyondMail, Da Vinci eMAIL, Infinite Technologies' ExpresslT!, Futurus' Team, and Notework.

Ferns E-Mail Update, October 1, 1992. 0 1992 Ferris Networks, Inc. All rights reserved. Not to be reproduced without permission. For subscriptions ($395/year), reprints, consulting, seminars contact FNI, 353 Sacramento Street #600, San Francisco, CA 94111. Tel (415) 986-1414. 17 Future Outlook We end with a few ideas on future developments which will likely improve life for traveling users—and the technical people supporting them. Filtering C Rules Processing PC e-mail vendors will provide ever-more powerful message processing facilities, such as those provided by BeyondMail. cc:Mail plans to release some filtering and rules processing facilities late this year and this should be well worth tracking. We think BeyondMail probably has a two-year lead over its competition in this regard. Wireless The spread of wireless communications, and the use of this by laptops to link to the home office, will likely resolve a lot of today's bits and bytes connection problems. Internetworks Internetwork connections are rare today. We expect them to become a lot more common. This will probably become the main way of checking one's mail while traveling. Once the internetwork is in place, no special setup is required—the user simply goes traveling and logs in wherever there's a PC. Telnet TCP/IP networks are gradually spreading beyond the engineering and scientific world. Ordinary PC networks are beginning to use TCP/IP as a transport— instead of things like SPX/IPX or NetBeui. When this happens, the standard TCP/IP terminal emulation package, Telnet, will proliferate. This can be used to do terminal emulation into a PC on the user's home network, and hence process their mailbox. For companies migrating to TCP/IP as a transport who do not yet have a full internetwork, this should be an attractive strategy. We haven't seen anyone try it yet, however. Note that Telnet is normally used for character-based screens, so be cautious on its applicability to Windows clients. Voice/E-Mail Integration Voice mail is very easy to access, from anywhere, even internationally. It makes sense to have the voice mail system notify you whether you have e-mail messages, and let you do a certain amount of processing of those messages. VoxMail is the best-known package doing this for PC e-mail. Using touch tones, it lets you forward, delete, reply, create and save mailbox messages. You can also send voice messages to other users, using the e-mail system. Laptops Widespread Laptops will continue to proliferate as they get smaller, more powerful, and cheaper. This will help, because right now users who don't have a laptop are resistant to being told they need to carry one around.

Ferris E-Mail Update, October 1, 1992. 1992 Ferris Networks, Inc. All rights reserved. Not to be reproduced without permission. For subscriptions ($395/year), 18 reprints, consulting, seminars contact FNI, 353 Sacramento Street #600, San Francisco, CA 94111. Tel (415) 986-1414. Vendor Contacts AT&T Mail Microsoft Mail Remote AT&T Remote Access Service (800) 242-6005 Microsoft BeyondMail One Microsoft Way Beyond Redmond, WA 98052-6399 38 Sidney Street (800) 227-4679 Cambridge, MA 02139 MCI Mail (617) 621-0095 Contact your MCI Mail sales rep. Cubix Carbon Copy 2800 Lockheed Way Microcom Corporation Carson City, NV 89706 500 River Ridge Drive (702) 883-7611 Norwood, MA 02062 Da Vinci Assistant (617) 551-1999 Da Vinci Systems NetWare Global Messaging POB 17449 NetWare MHS (Personal Edition), also Raleigh, NC 27619 called NetWare Remote (919) 881-4320 NetWare Access Server ForwardIT! Novell Infinite Technologies Contact your local Novell dealer. Or 11433 Cronridge Drive, Suite H call the Novell Messaging Hotline, at Owings Mills, MD 21117 (408) 473-8989 Tel (410) 363-1097 VoxMail Chatterbox VoxLink Corporation J&L Information Systems 1516 Tyne Blvd. 9238 Deering Avenue Nashville, TN 37215 Chatsworth, CA 91311 (615) 297-4271 (818) 709-1778 cc:Mail Lotus/cc:Mail 2141 Landings Drive Mountain View, CA 94043 (800) 448-2500 UM11111111111111•1 Bibliography BeyondMail Administration Guide. Also ROAD.RUL rule set on BeyondMail Sample Applications Disk Da Vinci Assistant Administrator's Guide ForwardIT! Installation Guide, published by Infinite Technologies. Also available from CompuServe at the PCVENF forum, Infinite Technologies library, 4ward.zip file Microsoft Mail Administrator's Guide, Microsoft Mail Remote User's Guide NetWare Global Messaging Administration NetWare MHS Installation and Operation. See the sections on NetWare MHS (Personal Edition) ______111111111111•111

Ferris E-Mail Update, October 1, 1992. 01992 Ferris Networks, Inc. All rights reserved. Not to be reproduced without permission. For subscriptions ($395/year), reprints, consulting, seminars contact FNI, 353 Sacramento Street #600, San Francisco, CA 94111. Tel (415) 986-1414. 19 Other News Slew Of cc:Mail Announcements. Lotus made a slew of announcements about cc:Mail at their September 23-25 user group meeting. Many release dates were given informally and may have some degree of shift-ability. The main announcements were: • cc:Mail for Windows v2.0 should ship by the end of the year, or in January 1993. New features include a new user interface, spelling checker, rules-based message handling, and OLE support. • Work continues to bring the same functionality to different cc:Mail versions. The plan is to have the DOS, Windows, and Macintosh versions fully in synch by 3Q93. • A remote client for the Macintosh will be available November 1992. • cc:Mail will soon be available for non-Sun Unix machines. It will follow Motif guidelines. An HP-9000 version will ship 1Q93, and a version for the IBM RS/6000 will ship 2Q93. • cc:Mail will have a new calendaring and scheduling package. Lotus Organizer v1.0 With Scheduling will be available by the end of the year or in January 1993. This will ultimately replace Network Scheduler. • There will be an X.400-based MTA by late 1993. It will preserve 100% message fidelity between end cc:Mail systems. In the meantime, a tunneling-through-X.400 utility is available. • A VIM software developer's kit for DOS clients should be available mid-1993. • cc:Mail for OS/2 Workplace Shell v1.0 will ship by the end of the year or in January 1993. The current OS/2 product is simply a port of the DOS version. • The new gateway to OV/VM and PROFS continues to be in beta and should be out by the end of the year. • New versions of the SMTP/UUCP, fax, and MHS gateways will ship before the end of 1992, in 1Q93, and before 3Q93 respectively. • By the end of the year, the DOS MTA ( "Gateway" ) will be able to use SPX/IPX, TCP/IP, and X.25 communications. By the end of the year, the OS/2 version of the MTA will be able to use LU 6.2 communications as well as SPX/IPX, TCP/IP, and X.25. • • cc:Mail's MTA, called Gateway, is henceforth renamed Router. Hooray! Life for people who talk about e-mail just became a bit simpler. Contact Lotus/cc:Mail at (800) 448-2500. IBM Joins VIM Committee. IBM joined the VIM steering and technical committees, which are trying to develop a standard e-mail API. It joins other vendors such as Apple, Borland, Lotus, Novell, and WordPerfect. Contact Deborah Siegel, IBM, at (914) 642-5377.

Ferris E•Mail Update, October 1, 1992. 0 1992 Ferris Networks, Inc. AS rights reserved. Not to be reproduced without permission. For subscriptions ($395/year), reprints, consulting, seminars contact FNI, 353 Sacramento Street a600, San Francisco, Ca, 94111. Tel (41S) 986.1414.

20 Lotus Ships VIM SDK For cc:Mail. Lotus shipped the first commercially available VIM software developers' toolkit. It provides API access to the Windows and OS/2 versions of cc:Mail. Contact Lotus/cc:Mail at (800) 4482500. SNADS Gateway For MS Mail 3.0. Linkage announced a gateway from MS Mail 3.0 to SNADS systems, notably Office Vision/MVS and Office Vision/400. Expected shipment is by the end of September 1992. Contact Paul Saunders, Linkage, at (613) 786-3196. Memo Gets Bulletin Boards. Mainframe e-mail vendor Verimation announced a bulletin board feature for Memo. Contact Adam Sroczynski at Verimation on (201) 767 4795. OV/400 to cc:Mail Directory Synchronization. Linkage announced Linkage Directory Sync, which automatically synchronizes OV/400 and cc:Mail directories. Contact Paul Saunders, Linkage, at (613) 786-3196. HP DeskManager To Get MS Mail Windows Front End. Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard announced the MS Mail Windows client will front end to DeskManager, the e-mail system for the HP-3000 mini. It should extend DeskManager's life. Contact Glenn Osaka at HP on (408) 447-1686. Soft•Switch Educational Seminars. Soft•Switch announced a 35-city series of educational seminars, from September through December 1992. Topics include X.400/X.500, SMTP/MIME, MHS, and SNADS; integration of different e-mail systems; mail network management. Contact Soft•Switch at (215) 640-9600. Data Connection Sells 1988 X.400 Portable Code To Microsoft. Data Connection announced it had sold Microsoft its 1988 X.400 MTA code. Contact John Cooper, Director of Data Connection's OSI group, at (01144) 81 366-1177. Lotus Pitches Market Share Statistics. Lotus/cc:Mail sent out some figures suggesting it has a dominant international market share. This is likely true, but the statistics were questionable. Contact Rebecca Seel, Lotus, at (617) 6931579. E-Mail Discussion Lists For NetWare MRS. Infinite Technologies announced its new version of MHS Librarian will support e-mail discussion lists. Contact John Madill, Infinite Technologies, on (410) 363-1097. New Marketing Head For cc:Mail, Notes. Cliff Conneighton is director of marketing for cc:Mail and Notes. He was previously in charge of Gartner's Office Information Systems service. Contact him at (617) 693-8844. Joiner Changes Name. Joiner Technologies changed its name to Wingra Technologies. Contact Wingra Technologies at (608) 238-4454. Bliss Communications Introduces Simple Store & Forward. Bliss Communications announced its Motorola 68000-based Message Center. This contains a simple e-mail package and connects PCs, dumb terminals, printers, and fax machines. Contact Bliss Communications at (908) 223-0066.

Farris 611411 Update, October 1, 1992. 0 1992 Ferris Networks, Inc. All rights reserved. Not to be reproduced without permission. For subscriptions (5395/year), reprints, consulting, seminars contact FM. 353 Sacramento Street #600, San Francisco, CA 94111. Tel (415) 986-1414. 21 The Ferris E-Mail Update:

Analysis 7u Practical Insight Every month, the Ferris E-Mail Update delivers in-depth analysis and practical insight. Sample topics include: • NetWare MHS. The strengths and weaknesses of NetWare MHS and NetWare Global Messaging. September 1992. • Support For Travelling Users. The problems of linking users to their home mailbox in highly distributed environments, and reasonable solution strategies. October 1992. • Leveraging PROFS & Office Vision. These two products have a lot going for them, such as calendaring, mail management, and the fact they reach everywhere. We look at how PC front ends can perk up the user interface, while retaining the underlying strengths. November 1992. • Soft•Switch EMX & EMM. An assessment of the new integration engine as it comes to market. • Microsoft's Messaging. An assessment of Microsoft Mail 3.0, and where Microsoft's headed. • X.25. What it is, implementation issues, and when to use it instead of dialup lines. • API Wars. Why this matters for F1000 organizations, and an update on what's happening. • BeyondMail. An assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of this e-mail-based workflow product. • E-Mail Network Management. With 5,000 or more connected mailboxes, you need this. An explanation of what it is, and the current state of the art. • An E-Mail Architecture Development Methodology. A proposal for how to organize the process of defining an e-mail architecture. Plus, each issue includes a concise summary of recent e-mail news. Interested? Like your own copy, properly bound? Just fill in the order form and send it to us. Or call (415) 986-1414.

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