Patent ID: 7533149

Claim:
A method for use at a computer system that includes first and second messaging applications and is network connectable along with one or more other computer systems to a network, the method for providing access to an electronic message body, the method comprising: receiving an electronic message, including a higher fidelity version of a message body, from a first messaging application, the higher fidelity version of the message body received in a higher fidelity data format, the higher fidelity data format being proprietary to the first messaging application and one of a plurality of different data formats the first messaging application supports, each data format in the plurality of different data formats varying in fidelity such that some data formats have more features than other data formats, the data formats including: plain text, HTML, and Rich Text; interoperating with the first messaging application to cause the first messaging application to generate one or more additional versions of the message body, each additional version of the message body being in a different data format from among the plurality of different data formats the first messaging application supports, the one or more additional versions of the message body including a lower fidelity version of the message body formatted in accordance with the lower fidelity data format, the lower fidelity format having fewer features than the higher fidelity format, the lower fidelity version being one of an HTML version and a plain text version of the message body; storing the electronic message and each of the differently formatted versions of the message body in a data store accessible to the first and second messaging applications; maintaining an association between the electronic message and each of the differently formatted versions of the message body within the data store, includes maintaining an association between the electronic message and each of a) the higher fidelity format version of the message body, b) a middle fidelity format HTML version of the message body, and c) a lower fidelity format plain text version of the message body, the middle fidelity format having fewer features than the higher fidelity format and the lower fidelity format having fewer features than the middle fidelity format; receiving a request for the electronic message from the second messaging application; determining that the second messaging application and the first messaging application commonly support at least one of the plurality of different data formats selected from among: plain text, HTML, and Rich Text; identifying the highest fidelity format that is commonly supported by both the first messaging application and the second messaging application; and providing a version of the message body, formatted in accordance with the highest fidelity format that is commonly supported from the data store to the second messaging application.