Standard Internet E-Mail Clients

One of the goals of Exchange Server 2003 is to continue to comply with the standards being used by the Internet community. Because Exchange Server 2003 is compliant with several popular Internet protocols, it can be used as the messaging server for third-party e-mail clients, provided that the clients are also compliant with those protocols.

If you are running third-party Internet e-mail client software as either a POP3 client or an IMAP 4 client, you can use Exchange Server 2003 as your messaging server. Although Outlook Express is a Microsoft product, it is a good example of the type of software we’re talking about here. Outlook Express really has nothing specifically to do with Exchange Server; you could use it to get your e mail from your local ISP and to read newsgroup messages from a UNIX-based news server somewhere on the Internet. In the case of Outlook Express, Exchange Server might never even enter the picture.

Non-Windows Platforms

In our discussions of clients using Exchange Server 2003, we usually assume that they’re running on a Windows operating system. How do non-Windows operating systems connect with Exchange Server? Let’s look at two other popular operating systems: UNIX and Macintosh.

UNIX Clients

No Outlook client exists for the UNIX operating system, so UNIX users have one of two choices for connecting to Exchange Server 2003:

• Internet e-mail client A UNIX-based, third-party Internet e-mail client can be used to access messages from Exchange Server 2003 over either the POP3 or IMAP4 protocols.

• Outlook Web Access Because the basic version of OWA runs in a standard browser, UNIX users can access their e-mail using their own Web browser.

Macintosh Clients

Macintosh clients have three choices for accessing Exchange Server 2003:

• Outlook 2001 for Mac Microsoft’s Outlook client for Macintosh provides functionality similar to that of its 32-bit Windows counterpart. There are also plans to provide Exchange Server support for the e-mail client that is part of Microsoft Office for Macintosh—Entourage.

• Internet e-mail client Like UNIX users, Macintosh users can access Exchange Server 2003 with their own POP3 or IMAP4 e-mail clients.

• Outlook Web Access OWA is also accessible from a Macintosh- based Web browser.

As you can see, the client choices for the UNIX and Macintosh operating systems are extensive, mainly due to Exchange’s support for industry-standard protocols. Exchange Server 2003 gives the user a variety of ways to access messages, regardless of the operating system.