Purpose and Scope

This paper has been prepared as an educational paper discussing the internet and its electronic mail facilities.

Many corporations have not fully integrated their corporate e-mail networks and their engineering research and development e-mail networks. Often these research and development networks are linked to the Internet.

Integration of Internet e-mail into corporate messaging systems is often a requirement. This integration can be more efficient if the characteristics, services and the culture surrounding Internet e-mail is better understood by users and system managers. This paper specifically addresses this need.

Furthermore, the maturity and widespread availability of Internet e-mail software makes SMTP a possible choice for implementing corporate messaging backbones in certain environments. This paper contains information that can contribute to better decisions about such issues.