cc:mail comments

[[e-mail]]

orig-msg		From [e-mail] Wed Nov 25 18:30:44 1992
orig-msg		Date: Wed, 25 Nov 1992 10:29:41 -0500
orig-msg		From: Ursula Sinkewic <[e-mail]>
orig-msg		Message-Id: <[e-mail]>
orig-msg		To: [e-mail]
orig-msg		Subject: cc:mail comments
orig-msg		Cc: [e-mail]
orig-msg		
orig-msg		
orig-msg		
orig-msg		Hi Raymond:  I read your note sent to osi-ds on cc:mail and its claim
orig-msg		to support x.500.  We may be getting cc:mail and I was wondering if
orig-msg		you had any more insights about x.500 and cc:mail in general that
orig-msg		you wouldn't mind sending along.
orig-msg		
orig-msg							Thanks, 
orig-msg							Ursula Sinkewicz


Hello Ms Sinkewicz
	     I am no expert but I hope my comments will help you.
	Retix has X.500 DSA, which I have only seen demonstrated at 
	Interop. My Impression is that because of lack of government
	intrest in osi. They have been forced for economic reasons to
	get into bed with LAN mail User Interface providers, i.e. CC:mail
	Higgins, quick mail, DeVinci. The implication of this un holy
	alliance is that Retix has stopped development on their own
	windows users agent. They did not want their partners to suffer
	from gui envy I guess. I remember being told twice that retix
	was going to stop making their windows user agent. At this
	time only federal government customers can buy the windows user
	agent. You would think that all the Mail User Interface providers
	would start developing X.400 Mail User Interfaces, then DUA's
	All these vendors will probably tell you the same thing, OSI
	x.400 api's are to hard we can't use them. I guess maybe it is
	too hard to do a joint venture or establish a retix constortuim
	that would provide training and a standard x.400 api. Now
	Enter various organizations trying to standardize and simplify
	and converge api's so they are vendor neutral. I believe the
	that the purely communications view of the ccitt vs software engineering 
	perspective has created a power vacuum that vendors of lan MUI's can not
	fill. A software engineering model that consisted of 
	1. basic requirements of a Mail User Interface(MUI) functions such as
	read, compose, send, accept, addressing,
	2. an analyis of these basic requirements with respect to what
	part of the standards address the requirements 
	3. a preliminary design with api's if available to access osi applications 

	The above software engineering view I believe would fill the vaccumm
	And spare me from the same old BS that sales men who claim to
	know osi say. "...Have you seen the standards I have and they fill up
	a book case..." Unfortunately, most salesmen have only seen the
	standards in a book case.

	Of course, the above would only happen if I also believed in the tooth
	fairy with that said. Here are your options.
	
	1.set up a retix mta on a unix host with NFS
	both Novell and Banyan have 3rd party NFS products 
	for Banyan there is a company named incognito software in
	canada.
	2.for directory services Enterprise mail has a directory
	services product which can work with the retix MTA on a Unix
	host. They have both a DOS and a windows MUI for the retix MTA.
	I have not seen any of their directory services product.
	3.One disadvantage with retix is they are the IBM of OSI, you
	pay for everything. The appropriate term is they are market 
	oriented. Another disadvantage is that their x.400 to smtp gateway
	can not uuencode binary body parts. This means that if someone sends
	a word perfect document or spread sheet. The gateway will not uuencoded
	a send it on its way to an smtp host. CCmail for Novell and
	Incognito for Banyan will uuencode and uudecode messages, and there 
	is a public domain version for the pc so users can always
	retrieve the binary file.
	4.If you have time and are short of cash you might consider isode's
	quipu ( directory services) and PP( x.400). It may take you time
	to configure but it is almost free. You can also buy from it from
	xtel. You can buy it from Wollongong to but they support many 
	products and their service engineers were not that familiar
	with isode I have found that the public domain isode has a richer
	functionality than wollongong's current offerings. In addition,
	PP uuencodes binary body parts so they maybe sent to almost any
	host using x.400 or smtp. PP and quipu do have one major
	drawback. A lack of a decent Mail User Interface for dos/windows
	or Unix. Enterprise is working on one for DOS. With regard to Directory
	User Agents for dos they exist some where, I have heard of them
	but I believe they are non existent.