Collaboration across the Internet is one of the most exciting, avidly discussed topics today. Microsoft is committed to a complete communication and collaboration suite of tools, and the Internet Explorer 4.0 Suite provides a solution for whatever Internet-based communication needs users have. Using its modular installation program, users can set up only the pieces they need, or take advantage of the extensibility and openness of the Internet Explorer Suite and integrate it with their existing solutions.

The new Internet Explorer Suite contains these components for communication and collaboration:

• Outlook Express for messaging
  
  
• NetMeeting™ for conferencing and application sharing
  
  
• NetShow for broadcasting
  
  
• FrontPad for Web authoring
  
  
• Personal Web Server and Web Publishing wizard for Web publishing

The Internet Explorer 4.0 Suite allows seamless integration from one application to the next, as they are all tightly integrated and developed with a common menu and toolbar user interface. This simplifies training, as a user who learns one application in the suite already has a head start in learning the next one.

The Internet Explorer Suite is built for extensibility; an organization that uses it does not need to discard their existing tools. For example, a corporation can use an existing messaging solution and still enjoy many integration features with the Internet Explorer Suite.

In addition, Internet Explorer 4.0 offers a scalable solution for users who need high-end applications. Microsoft Outlook can replace Outlook Express mail for those who need a richer mail client. While FrontPad is terrific for making Web pages, Microsoft FrontPage is the full Web site development platform. Finally, for a true enterprise Web server, users should move from the Personal Web Server to Microsoft Internet Information Server, which has all of the security, scalability, and robustness that a Web site truly needs with the scale of the Internet today.

Messaging—Outlook Express

E-mail has become the most popular Internet application in the world. Unfortunately, most e-mail is limited to text-only messages, perhaps with attachments. Internet Explorer 4.0 allows an entirely new type of standards-based messaging, opening the door to a level of richness and detail. Outlook Express provides a host of new features that make it easy to communicate around the world, while being tightly integrated with the browser.

Key Messaging Features

• LDAP Support. Internet Explorer 4.0 has full support for lightweight directory access protocol (LDAP) directory services, which provide access to virtual Internet white pages. This makes it easy to find anyone on corporate LDAP servers, or use the built-in support for Four11, InfoSpace, Bigfoot, or WhoWhere to locate anyone on the Internet. Due to strong customer requests, Internet Explorer also includes support for vCard, for exchanging business card information.
  
  
• IMAP4 Compliant. With support for IMAP4, Internet Explorer 4.0 enables users to get e-mail from any computer connected to the network that is running Outlook Express. With support for IMAP, users have the following added capabilities:
  
  
  • Ability to access e-mail from multiple locations and computers. For example, users can access their e-mail from work and from home.
    
    
  • Improved bandwidth utilization. Users can choose to download headers only.
    
    
  • Central mail store administration, such as mail store back up.
  
  
  
• HTML View and Edit. Outlook Express now supports full HTML, so you can send e-mail messages with the richness of Web pages. In fact, with support for MIME HTML, users can send full Web pages from the Internet or intranet to each other, even when they are offline. The Insert HTML command lets users insert content from existing Web pages into messages quickly and easily.
  
  
• S/MIME Support. Support for Secure MIME enables users to encrypt their messages, digitally sign messages, as well as certify senders with digital certificates.
  
  
• Integration. Outlook Express is tightly integrated with the rest of the Internet Explorer suite, making it easy to use together and switch between applications seamlessly. For example:
  
  
  • E-mail folders and newsgroup servers are located in the same namespace, so it’s seamless to move from e-mail to news.
    
    
  • POP, IMAP, and NNTP server information is kept in the same hierarchy.
    
    
  • It shares common menus and toolbars with other components.
    
    
  • With one click from the browser, you can send a whole Web page to someone; the entire page is embedded in the message not just a link to a Web site.
    
    
  • Drag and drop an entire Web page or an Internet shortcut into the Inbox, and Outlook Express will send it out.
  
  
  
• Future Integration Features
  
  
  
  • Quick access to Outlook Express from the other applications’ toolbars, as well as the new Internet Explorer taskbar.
    
    

  
  

  

  
  
  
  

• Productivity Features. Numerous features have been added to make Outlook Express easier to use.
  
  
  
  • Users can create multiple, hierarchical folders, and drag and drop them and their associated messages as needed.
    
    
  • Important e-mail addresses are saved easily by using Auto-add to build an address book.
    
    
  • The Draft folder stores saved e-mail messages before they are sent, making it easy to keep track of messages in progress.
    
    
  • Support for multiple mailboxes makes it one simple step to get e-mail from several servers. It can even dial multiple ISPs separately without user prompting.
    
    
  • The Send and Receive commands can be executed separately, so users can spend their time online efficiently. For example, a user on a slow link can choose to only send messages and not download large messages with attachments.
    
    
  • Inbox rules have been enhanced so that users can forward, move, or copy messages automatically. Inbox rules make it easy to filter mail among family members who have separate accounts. Users with slow connections can download small messages locally and keep everything else on their server. With the Delete Off Server feature, messages can be removed even before they’re downloaded.

What are the Benefits of Outlook Express?

• Improved communication and productivity. Internet Explorer 4.0 takes messaging to a new level. With the ability to integrate full HTML into a message, users can send information with a fidelity never before available. The integration with the browser, as well as integration with directory services and security features, makes it easy to find anyone in the world and communicate with them richly and safely.
  
  
• Be efficient online. With support for LDAP and IMAP4, users can be productive online by avoiding endlessly searching for addresses and e-mail messages. A combination of the search engine for LDAP directories, IMAP4’s ability to download only what users need, and the Inbox Assistant for messaging rules all make sure that users find what they need quickly and easily.
  
  
• Ensure your safety. S/MIME enables message recipients to verify who sent a message and enables users to send encrypted messages. For example, if you want to send an e-mail message to your broker telling him to sell 100 shares of stock, you want to make sure that he knows it came directly from you. Digital signatures ensure user identity to others. Also, if you send a credit card number in an e-mail message, you only want the intended owner to read it. With Outlook Express, you can take the recipient’s public key and encode your message so that only that person can read it.
  
  
• Built for future extensibility. The MIME engine inside Outlook Express is freely available to developers who want to create either client or server-based solutions using MIME technology. In fact, all of the engines and protocols—S/MIME, NNTP, IMAP, and SMTP—are available for third-party development and will be used in future Microsoft products.

How does Messaging Work?

LDAP Support

By using open, standards-based protocols, Microsoft is helping to make searches on any LDAP directory service provider easy and accessible. Using the new LDAP-enabled address book, users can search popular Internet white pages directory services using first name, last name, or e-mail name. Once the information is found, Outlook Express can store the address for later use.

Sending mail has never been easier. Users simply type the person's name on the TO: line in any message, and Outlook Express automatically searches the selected white pages directories to fill in the e-mail name. Internet Explorer supports partial name checking against various LDAP servers. Outlook Express searches for a partial name against whatever hierarchy you create. For example, by typing in a partial name, you can tell Internet Explorer to search your local address book first, then your corporate LDAP servers, and finally, the Internet.

The LDAP lookup engine implements a form of fuzzy logic to help users find others on the Internet. For example, if the name John Doe is entered, Outlook Express looks for successful matches on:

• Exactly John Doe
• First name exactly John, last name beginning with Doe
• First name beginning with John, last name exactly Doe
• First name beginning with John, last name beginning with Doe
• The whole e-mail address beginning with John Doe

Messaging Independence

Outlook Express ensures that users can not only read messages regardless of source, but it also allows the interaction between protocols. Outlook Express supports all the different message protocols (POP3, IMAP, NNTP, SMTP, etc.), and then lets users mix and match them to suit their needs. So, someone could take a news message that they’ve received and place it into their mail folders. They can even leave it on an IMAP server, ignoring the fact that it came from an NNTP source. In Beta 2, users will be able to create e-mail messages where the recipients are both users and newsgroups, both internal and external.

HTML Mail

With support for MIME HTML, Internet Explorer 4.0 ushers in a new way to share Web content through e-mail. However, because not everyone with an e-mail address will have a MIME HTML messaging client, Outlook Express makes sure that the appropriate message comes across regardless of the technology on the recipient’s side.

• If the recipient doesn’t support MIME, the message will contain the text-based information first, and then after a separator, the raw HTML will follow, which can be easily ignored.
  
  
• If the recipient supports MIME, the message will display the text-based information first, and include the HTML as an attachment, which the user can view in their default browser.
  
  
• If the recipient supports MIME HTML, the full Web page will be displayed inside the mail message natively.

S/MIME Support

Outlook Express enables users to feel secure about both sending information across the Internet and being assured that the information they receive is from a valid source. This level of security is dependent upon public key encryption and certificates, which means that if you encrypt a message with one key, only an accompanying key can decode the message. Users who want this extra level of security can make their public key available to the people they communicate with, but keep their private key to themselves.

Certificates are a way of wrapping up public keys, and they are how public keys are shared. All of the security in Internet Explorer and Outlook Express is based on standards-based public key algorithms. Users can obtain certificates from certifying authorities such as Verisign. This is necessary because you need a certifying authority to trust in telling you that the public key really belongs to the person it says it belongs to. This way, a user can sign a message with their private key, and anyone with their public key will be able to read it, but the recipient will be assured of who the message came from and that it has not been changed since it was sent.

Conversely, a user can use someone else’s public key to encrypt a message, and only that person is able to read it, since the only key that can decrypt it is that person’s private key, which they have not shared.