The debate is heating up over Internet calendaring and scheduling standards, with the Microsoft Corp camp endorsing the de facto SMTP technology and Lotus Development Corp and its pals supporting the newer, more sophisticated IMAP standard. Although Microsoft admits that most major vendors, itself included, will support IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol) in new products next year, it believes the initial standard should utilize SMTP (Simple Messaging Transfer Protocol), used by 99% of existing groupware products. Microsoft hopes an initial SMTP spec would evolve to IMAP at a later date. The vendors are expected to meet for the third time in Redmond in September to try and devise a way for different software scheduling packages to talk to each other over the Internet. Following last Wednesday’s meeting (CI No 2,963). Microsoft submitted two vCalendar drafts to the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) based on SMTP. Lotus and other companies have submitted a spec based on IMAP. Microsoft Exchange group product manager for messenging and groupware, Greg Lobdell, said he is confident that Lotus and Microsoft will be able to come up with a compromise. What Lotus is proposing is not a competing standard; it has a similar objective. Microsoft wants to establish a baseline of interoperability to solve 80% of communication problems and then, over time, these protocols can merge, Lobdell said. Microsoft plans to include native IMAP support in its Exchange product’s beta release this winter.
Dodging each other?
Apparently, Netscape Communications Corp declined to attend the June Microsoft Corp-sponsored standards meeting in Montreal, Canada, then Redmond shunned – or didn’t RSVP in time for – the subsequent meeting in Netscape’s home town of Mountain View on Wednesday (mentioned above). And depending upon who you believe, Microsoft either missed the deadline to have its name included in Netscape’s press release about the meeting or was snubbed for political reasons according to one source. If the committee doesn’t decide upon a standard in a timely manner, it shouldn’t be hard to know who to point two fingers of blame at.
