MS-Exchange interoperability (was: making vars in bash script...)

[bscott at ntisys.com]

On Mon, 11 Nov 2002, at 10:41am, pll at lanminds.com wrote:
> MAPI is Microsoft's proprietary mail protocol IIRC.  I believe it 
> stands for Messaging Application Programming Interface; 

  Close.  "Mail API".

> IOW, it's how Exchange compliant mail readers treat a "mail message
> object".

  More or less.  MAPI (like most things Microsoft) describes more than one
thing.

  On a Windows PC, MAPI is a set of interfaces, which libraries and
applications plug into.  MS Outlook, in "Corporate/Workgroup Mode", uses
MAPI.  The Exchange client is implemented as a MAPI plugin.  Other vendors
(e.g., Novell's GroupWise, and HP's OpenMail) have implemented their own
MAPI plugins, which let you use Outlook with third-party mail servers.

  MAPI is also the term used for the network protocols used on the wire to
talk to an Exchange server.  Basically, MAPI uses RPC (Remote Procedure
Call) to invoke functions on the MS Exchange server.  Some of the MAPI
protocols do not, in fact, use the MAPI APIs described above.

> And if they offer IMAP on the Exchange server, stay away from that too!

  Care to expand upon this?  I'm curious to know what the problems are.  I
know we have a few people using IMAP to talk to an Exchange server, and they
don't seem to have any problems.  (On the other hand, they also are very
undemanding users, so maybe they just haven't encountered the problems.)

-- 
Ben Scott <bscott at ntisys.com>
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