Writers of mail-enabled applications can relax a bit after Lotus Development Corp’s announcement last week that it will produce software to enable MAPI and VIM to work together. MAPI is Microsoft’s Messaging Applications Programming Interface – a set of interfaces that enables developers to add messaging to their applications without worrying about the underlying mechanisms. VIM is the Vender-Independent Messaging specification proposed by Lotus, Apple Computer Inc, Borland International Inc, IBM Corp, Novell Inc and WordPerfect Corp, which is designed for use with any operating system – including Windows. The trouble is that Windows developers have thumbed their noses at VIM, preferring to stick with Microsoft’s own alternative. Speaking at last week’s US Electronic Mail Association meeting, Lotus chairman Jim Manzi uttered the superbly politic sentence We think MAPI is an excellent API, but it’s for Windows only and indicated that developers were getting tired of the bickering. Microsoft itself has in the past indicated a belief that MAPI has applicability outside the Windows arena, but has become less vocal in this assertion recently. The stage then, is set for peace. Lotus said that the integration layer software will be distributed via bulletin boards after Microsoft produces its extended MAPI specification.
