From: tomw@ccadfa.cc.adfa.oz.au (Tom Worthington)
Subject: Comments on Unipalm's Mail-it MS-Windows Unix Mail Product
Organization: Australian Defence Force Academy, Canberra, Australia
Date: Tue, 22 Dec 1992 07:27:08 GMT

Many of you will have read my complaints in UseNet news and ACS
publications about the lack of easy to use e-mail products. Yesterday I
received a demonstration copy of Uniplam "Mail-It" electronic mail
product. It appears to have many of the features I have been looking for.

The product is designed to run on an IBM PC under MS-Windows 3.x and talk
to a POP-2 server using TCP/IP. In this way it provides a GUI e-mail
interface on the PC, which looks much like other PC e-mail products, but
talks to Internet type e-mail systems directly.

In may ways Mail-It looks much like Eudora on the Mac, but for IBM PCs. It
appears to actually be much simpler than Eudora to use, but lacks some
Eduora features. The packaging and manual are very slick. Not too much and
not too little.

Some of the features of Eudora which I missed in Mail-It were:

* a local user directory: You appear to have to type in e-mail addresses
each time you send a message. There isn't a local directory to keep
commonly used addresses. However you don't have to type an address when
replying to messages, as this is inserted automatically,

* no encoding of binary files: You can only send and receive text (ASCII)
messages. There isn't a feature for encoding binary files into text
messages.

* requires extra network software: Mail-It is designed to work with Sun or
FTP's TCP/IP products or Novell's LAN WorkPlace (whatever that is) to
provide the communication to the POP-2 mail server. A copy of the POP-2
source cope is provided on the disk but no TCP/IP software. There is no
way to just plug a modem in, using the supplied software, as there is with
Eudora. This was frustrating for testing purposes as Mail-It checks for
the communications software before starting up. I havn't got the TCP/IP
software so couldn't run the software to see what it looked like on
screen. Perhaps Unipalm could offer TCP/IP or some dial-in option with the
product (Net Research in Sydney, ph: +61 2 238 7696, tell me they have a
IBM PC TCP/IP product).

One of my "wish list" features, which neither Eudora nor Mail-It have is
direct support for UseNet news.


Australian agent required

Unipalm mentioned that they are looking for an Australian agent for the
product. Suggested pricing is 450 UK pounds for 5 users and 750 UK pounds
for 10 users. I don't know what that translates into for Australian
dollars and assume that discounts for larger quantities could be
negotiated.

Mail-It looks like something which would fit well at an organisation which
was using Unix servers, but with IBM PCs running MS-Windows. It might be
simpler than buying an IBM PC LAN based mail product. It also might be
suitable for the commercial Internet bureaus springing up around Australia
to bundle with a mail service.

Unipalm can be contacted at unipalm@unipalm.co.uk

ps: If someone can tell me where to get the TCP/IP software so I can
really try the product I would be happy to hear.



Tom Worthington
Chairman 
THE CANBERRA BRANCH OF 
THE AUSTRALIAN COMPUTER SOCIETY INCORPORATED
G.P.O. Box 446
Canberra A.C.T. 2601
Australia

Ph: +61 6 247 4830 (ACS Office)
Fax: +61 6 249 6419 
E-Mail: tomw@adfa.oz.au

22 December 1992

Newsgroups: aus.aarnet