emv@a.cc.umich.edu (Ed Vielmetti) (12/13/88)
There are more Macs on this campus than parking spaces, and lots of Appletalk nets strung in departments. There's also a large number of PC's, some of which are on nets of their own. It would be absurd to think that everyone will have a unix system on their desktop, or even for that matter an account on a unix system, any time soon. Each of these disconnected little networks has its own little e-mail system, or at least enough of them have some kind of e-mail the it would be a real coup to get them talking to the rest of campus, which is committed to SMTP in some for or another. So, here's my query: I'm looking for any or all reviews or experience on e-mail on LANs -- things like Banyan mail, Inbox, cc:Mail, CE Quickmail, and I'm sure there are dozens of others -- with an indication of how well they interface (if at all!) with any mail system which in turn can speak SMTP. So Mac to Vax mail, Banyan to PROFS mail, any of that would be information that I don't have right now. What I have heard, so far unsubstantiated, is that Inbox mail is supposed to be gatewayed to unix mail on Suns; that CE Quickmail has a unix/sendmail gateway function provided by Star Nine; and that a group at Ohio State has hacked Banyan mail to gateway it to SMTP. I'm particularly interested in solutions that cost less than $25 per seat, but don't let that stop you. If you can manage to send mail from your Macintosh or your MS-DOS system, of any kind -- not just as a terminal, but Real Mail -- please do so now. The more options that I can flush out, the better equipped I'll be to make reasonable recommendations. --Ed Edward Vielmetti, U of Michigan computing center mail group