Subject: RE: IMAP v. POP (Was: The utilitiy of IP is at stake here)

From: "Michel Py" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 4 Jun 2003 16:24:11 -0700

> Dave Crocker wrote:
> this is going to take us down a distracting path, but since
> you mention it, i would have switched to IMAP long ago, for
> exactly the multi-computer scenario you cite. but i have not
> come across an email user agent with features I need that
> also has support for IMAP that works acceptably.

Ditto. Among other things, my requirements for email are:
- It must be accessible from several computers.
- It must be accessible over https from anywhere, which pretty much
means the mail has to be stored on the server. Some loss of
functionality compared to the native client is acceptable.
- It must be accessible offline from a laptop (with a real keyboard, for
plane trips) that can synchronize over a dial-up and from a PDA/phone
that can synchronize over GPRS. Preferably it should not try to sync
that 5 meg spreadsheet that requires 1024x768 or better to view to the
PDA.

I would say that IMHO if IMAP has not replaced POP, it's because of two
things:
- No ISP would provide enough storage for _my_ mailbox and subfolders,
and I think that to large extent this would be true for most would-be
IMAP users.
- "enterprise" software has grabbed a large part of that potential
market by providing smoother off-line functionality and better
integration with calendar/contacts stuff.

I don't see why IMAP could not provide these features; I guess it's a
matter of implementation. I do see very good value in having a
standards-based system but unfortunately I've not found one that I like.

Michel.

---

From: "Michel Py" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 4 Jun 2003 16:24:11 -0700

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Michel.