Internet vs. Proprietary Messaging

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Who Has the Edge?

                    
Internet
                        
Proprietary


Scalability     The Internet was            Varies from product to product, but 
                designed for very-large-    generally requires additional server
                scale implementation.       and administrative support.

Features        While possible to imple-    Key features, such as group scheduling,
                ment features commonly      are field proven and highly integrated 
                found on proprietary        into the messaging environment.

                systems, standards are  
                not complete.

Administration  Solid tools just beginning  Competition and years of revisions
tools           to appear.                  make for robust options.


Reliability     No control over route of    Provides notification of delivery
                message or means of         and guaranteed delivery time.
                verifying delivery.

Choice of       Uses any POP3 client.       Some, but not all, allow choice of
clients                                     POP3-compliant clients.

Cost to own     Requires less server and    Requires more servers and admini- 
                administrative support.     strative support, but varies from 
                                            product to product.

Proven track    Key standards and prod-     Years of in-the-field use.
record          ucts are new to market.

External        Can send and receive        Key vendors have either partially 
communications  e-mail to or from anyo
ne    or fully implemented ability to   
                with an IP connection.      send and receive messages over an 
                                            IP connection.

Message         Attachments and             Attachments must be converted at a 
integrity*      commonly used formats       gateway server--a potential point 
                arrive intact.              of failure.

Performance     Variable delivery time.     Can guarantee delivery (or notify 
                                            failures) within a matter of seconds.

Security        Standards not yet           Relatively high level of security 
                finished.                   within the network.

*The ability to retain message formatting and structure.

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Proprietary E-Mail vs. Internet Mail

illustration_link (19 Kbytes)

Although the structures appear similar, proprietary mail architectures must use gateways to convert messages to their own formats.