kessler@schof.colorado.edu (Andrew Kessler) (02/01/90)
I'm thinking seriously about installing Quickmail here for the faculty and staff. I would like to hear from some people who are using it and what some of the known problems/bugs are? Are you happy with it? I eventually want to use Gatormail to connect to the internet. Is anyone doing that? What is the mail addressing like? Does that work well? Thank you, Andrew Kessler kessler@schof.colorado.edu
dave@etsu.CMI.COM (David Halonen) (02/01/90)
Hi all, We have been using QuickMail for about one year now. It was a great pleasure to dump InBox and we've never looked back! QuickMail is easy to install (both the server and individual stations) and reliable. A great feature is its ability to have custom forms, which allows us to cut down on the paper in the office once the admin people realize its potential (when they do realize it, boy do they get carried away.) We have a staff of about 25 people and our server is a dedicated MacPlus w/ 2M RAM. The only drawback of this is that it is sometimes slow about keeping up its log of wether or not a recipient has read a memo. By the way, the log is great, as it allows you to retrieve and re-read messages, as well as unsend a message before it gets read. QM also allows dial in capability, which we use every day. One can read their mail from any computer with a modem. We have installed two bridges to outside networks, one for AppleLink and one for Internet mail (GatorMail). When your set up (fairly easy for GatorMail, simple for AppleLink), you can send and receive mail 'round the world as easy as accross the hall. QM allows the creation of group mailing lists that can consist of people on your internal mail system and any other mail system also. This is a fairly gushing testimonial, but we've been very satisfied with this product. One happy customer, David Halonen, Center for Machine Intelligence, Electronic Data Systems Ann Arbor, MI (313) 995-0900 AppleLink: N0548 Internet: dave@cmi.com
lewis@bevsun.bev.lbl.gov (Steve Lewis) (02/04/90)
Here at LBL we have about 50 K-boxes supporting almost 1000 Macs, all linked on the common Ethernet. Approximately 300 of the Macs use QuickMail. The particular mail-center I am part of has 75 users. We are now beta-testing version 2.2. This is an excellent product. Not only do the Mac hackers such as myself use it and like it, but our scientists, administrators, technicians, financial types, and clerical people find it easy to learn and use. We get excellent response from the vendor, and it is very reasonably priced: the original version 1.0 was available on the street for about $16 per Mac. The lastest version should be about twice that, but still worth it. By the way, we also are testing the QuickMail-to-Unix bridge from StarNine. We have had only one real problem with that, which is being fixed even as I speak: when the destination mail center for QuickMail-bound mail was down, the bridge machine would accept the mail from Unix, thereby freeing the Unix system from any responsibility for retrying or reporting a non-delivery, however, the bridge would then drop the mail. But when working, it is quite powerful to find every Mac in the institution is connected to the Internet, not to mention all the more distantly bridged networks such as Bitnet, and so forth--with no compromise to the user interface. Steve Lewis, Project Leader SALewis@LBL.gov Bevalac Controls Group Mail Stop 64-121 Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory 415/486-5831 Berkeley, CA 94720 -- Steve Lewis, Project Leader SALewis@LBL.gov Bevalac Controls Group Mail Stop 64-121 Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory 415/486-5831 Berkeley, CA 94720
kauffman-jon@CS.YALE.EDU (Jon Kauffman) (02/06/90)
We've been using QuickMail here for almost a year; it does its job
well, although I can't compare it to any other Mac-based mail
packages. It's pretty slick and easy to teach. We like it, and at
present, there doesn't seem to be much else that measures up.
Most importantly, StarNine makes a package called MailLink which acts
as a QuickMail/SMTP bridge, so that we can send and receive mail from
the Internet. The bridge software can run atop an AppleShare server,
so there's no need to dedicate a machine.
Caveats (beefs) :
1. Like most things nowadays, QuickMail really needs a hard
disk in order to run reasonably (the manuals tell you
otherwise, but getting QuickMail and a system on a disk
is 780K+, which leaves not too much for anything else).
This disenfranchises a lot of users in our environment.
2. The newly released product for the PC (PC QuickMail) is
not up to snuff. It's slow, bug-ridden, and virtually
unusable on anything below an AT.
3. Keeping your license information straight is very tough--
Licenses are sold in increments of five and ten, and for
big installations, keeping serial number straight on
installed copies can be time-consuming (QuickMail has some
internal checks designed to keep you from using one copy
of the software more than you should). No one
begrudges CE the right to make money on their software, but
the current licensing scheme doesn't meet the needs of
institutions.
I'm told that CE is working on this one.
All in all, we're very pleased with QuickMail and MailLink; they're
straightforward enough for a Mac-oriented person to use, and they
deliver what they say they can.
======================================================================
Jon Kauffman kauffman-jon@yale.edu
The one they call "Boy"
Yale University {harvard,decvax}!yale!kauffman
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I speak for myself. Yale has other plans.medin@cincsac.arc.nasa.gov (Milo S. Medin) (02/11/90)
Be careful here. The mail relay to SMTP has got to work right. If it's flaky, then your Mac users are cut off from the rest of the world. Also, make sure the relay supports not just the DNS for A record resolvement, but also does the right thing with MX records. It's got to be a good Internet citizen. We've been playing with the software here at Ames, and have been very dissappointed with the reliability and functionality of the relays we've tried. The users (esp. management types) love it. We engineering types hate it. Why? Because the mail relay is slow or unreliable. It's got to work right or it's worthless. I should point out that the experience I'm quoting is that of our own group. I can't speak for the other groups playing with it here. Before you give up getting your managers to use real machines, make sure there is a viable alternative. If mail isn't reliable, it's not worth using. Thanks, Milo