The Bottom Line Mail servers on the market today offer a wide range of features. Yours should provide a balance of features, usability, and a price that your company can afford.

Todays companies have rank upon rank of employees split into departments and groups that all need to get data places to make sure that the company flows smoothly and that all of the functions of the business function as they should. Once, word of mouth and countless meetings among management personell was the only way to do that. You either flooded an office with paper memos, flooded a schedule with meetings, or flooded your desk with work: those were the choices.

With the widespread introduction of Mail Server based messaging services, those days are past and a new dawn of intercommunication has risen. A Mail Server, in essence is a central database of message accounts and messages for those accounts that the user accesses. More specifically, a Mail Server is a messaging center, a place where a client can connect, download messages, perform various functions, and log off. Today's mail servers are becoming so much more than that. Today we have robust applications that support real time messaging, to do list and calendar integration, in-program web browsing, newsgroup reading, and so many more features that I could not even begin to list them all here.

Todays software offers a whole list of features ranging in complexity from the simple and intuitive to the more complex features targeted to IT personel. I will do my best to cover some of the most common features of some of the more robust mail server applciations:

1) Multi-part MIME - When a user attaches a file to a message, that file will sometimes contain pointers to other files around it on the local machine. Some Mail Server software will be able to detect this and will be able to handle the combined set of inline files as a single attachemtn for the purposes of viewing and saving. Others which do not have this featureset will often require you to attach each file that you would like to send in the email as a separate attachment entry with its own MIME heading and the entire encapsulation. While this feature is not really a true neccessity, it is a common convienience for those who use complex file sets to display content. Often, multi part mime capabilities are required ot be able to read some HTML formatting depending on the way that the email and the client side program is designed.

2) Mail Gate - The ability to support a mail gate is a neccessity for any medium sized company or larger. A mail gate is a machine whos sole duty is to recieve and transmit mail to and from the Mail server itself. In this way, it acts as a buffer between the outside internet and the internal Mail Server. With mail having to make the extra step of passing through a mail gate, you add an extra layer of protection against hacking attempts in the case that they are able to pass through the external firewall. If they compromise the mail gate, though they will be able to intercept mail with certain types of specialized worms, you do not specifically contaminate the mail server itself which actually holds the mail files and deals with mail functionality (though you still have to be careful. advanced hacking worms will be able to follow the trail form the mail gate to the mail server itself a mail gate is not a fool-proof, hack-proof solution, it merely adds an extra level of security which is STRONGLY recommended).

3) Real Time Messaging - Though few Mail Server programs out there currently support Real Time messaging (AKA Instant Messaging) it is a useful feature for collaboration between users on work related projects and tasks. Real Time messaging works by the following: a) The client software makes a request or query as to whether a specific destination member is availible ot be messaged. if not, the mail server replys in the negative and the messaging cient reports it. if the user is availible then b) the messaging client copies the text message with a destination user to the mail server (more advanced servers will have a secure interface that allows the message to be encrypted in all stages of transmission) c) the mail server compares the destination user to the list of open client connections and detects the settings (IP address, etc.) to continue the message on its way d) the server will forward the message text along the proper pathway to the open client. e) The client messaging program on the destination will open the message and it will be displayed. Much of this functionality also depends on the client's ability to interface to this degree with the server.

4) Calendar and To-Do List Integration - Many clients which work with enterprise mail server software will have features such as calendars and to do lists to help keep users organized as they go about thier tasks in day to day business. More advanced mail servers will allow the client sending an email to specify a calendar entry or to do entry as an attachment to the email body to be passed along to the destination client. Often, if the calendar and to do databases are kept on the mail server itself, it will integrate the scheduling events into the to do and calendar entries automatically.

5) Web Based Service - Though this requires a huge amount of security, customization, and configuration to be useful in an enterprise environement, accessibility of email via a web based interface is a vital feature for many companies. When employees need to be able to log on to email from a home server, the easiest way to allow that access without working with secure VPN solutions and all of the hassles of home connections is simply to provide employees with a web address to go to for access. With Pop based mail service, you can give them that address but then you run into issues of leaving mail on the service so that it is still accessible in the workplace environment as well, AFTER it has been viewed on a home machine. With web-based services, mail is kept on the server and manipulated there, allowing powerful access to the company email no matter where the employee is logging on from. In addition, you can alieviate any client software costs if you use this interface exclusively, restricting subnets or requesting IP addresses in order to make sure that the server is accessed by the intranet only.

While newer mail servers have ream upon ream of features, it is important to remember that features are worthless unless they can be readily and easily understood and accessed. THe amil server that you implement should not require a higher skill level of administration and implementation than the employees that you have access to have. You have to work with what you have and if that means sacricifing features to ensure that the web server is properly taken care of, it would be my strong suggestion that you do so.

In addition, the web server software that you select should have the support for at least SMTP, POP3, and IMAP4. The SMTP and POP3 cpabilities should be the optimization concentration rather than the web or IMAP 4 interfaces. While there is no single solution that cna be assigned to all companies of a particular size, a great deal of though and planning should go into selecting and setting up the mail server for your company. This planning should make it easy to narrow down which software to select to only two or three candidates which offer the services you need at a level your employees can work with and a price that you can afford. A mail server is not a install and forget segment of software, it is something that you will have to work and live with for some time to come.