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Another critical feature lacking in most of the surveyed systems is message tracking, which enables users to manage their own message deliveries and rely less on the system administrator to resolve their problems. Only FirstClass permits users to view the history of particular mail messages to see if and when they were received, forwarded or repli ed to, or who downloaded a given attachment. Of the power trio, only GroupWise provides this feature.

Another generally weak area is rules. Rules give users greater control over the deluge of mail messages that land with a thud in their inboxes. While all five systems manage mail by rules or filters, none can actually test a new rule prior to enabling it. The five systems we tested all offer very simple rule creation and scripting capabilities, as well as more complex rules engines integrating with database systems or other computer processes.

All systems, with the exception of FirstClass (which will catch up in release 4.0), were Web-enabled to varying degrees. Some merely provided live links within the message, others interjected a bevy of Internet resources and tools accessed from the user interface, and still others permitted messages to be created and viewed in HTML.

Now, sink back into your soft chair, place your beverage in the handy cup holder and escape into the cool darkness of our featu re presentation. It's show time.

Coordinate.com BeyondMail Professional Internet Edition 3.0
"Doing business on mail" is the latest rallying cry from Coordinate.com, maker of BeyondMail 3.0. BeyondMail has been clie nt/server since 1985 and literally wrote the book on filters and rules. As you'd expect from this much experience, its rules utility is superb.

BeyondMail offers three separate but clever rules utilities to manage incoming mail: Message Clerk, While I'm Out and Message Reminders. All three use the same basic format and menu options, which made learning how to use all three less time-consuming. Message Clerk lets you automatically move, copy, forward or reply to messages as soon as they land in your inbox. The system also notifies you of important messages by showing a window or displaying a message in the status line at the bottom of the screen.

Say you want to file all your messages with a status of "urgent" so you can download them to save time when you're on the road. With just a few clicks of the mouse, your wish is granted. Plus, if you want to file these top priority messages in a new folder called "Urgent," BeyondMail will create it for you on the fly. BeyondMail truly enhances and simplifies the way people use mail.

BeyondMail let us create nonmessaging-based rules that are not triggered by message events such as the receipt of a new message. We were able to configure rules to run based on periodic or timer conditions, connected or disconnected status, at startup, when exiting, or with manual rules when initiated by a user.

The While I'm Out feature let us quickly create an automatic reply to all our designated mail that might arrive while we were out of the office or on vacation, for instance. This was the quickest and easiest feature to implement of all the systems we tested.

BeyondMail was the only system we tested with a well-thought-out reminder function for managing previously read messages that require action later. A c alendar and clock pop-up made it easy to set the date and time for the reminder.

You can have the reminder place a particular message in any folder; the system will alert you with a note, including text that you compose as a memory jogger. If you receive many mess ages on the same subject from the same person, such as announcements or staff meeting notices, you can have the system create a MailMinder from this message. The system will fill in the sender's name and the subject and you can then file the messages in a special meetings folder.