Microsoft releases new version of Internet Mail and News

Microsoft releases new version of Internet Mail and NewsMicrosoft posted a new version of Internet Mail and News to their Web sitetoday, that adds support for Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP).LDAP is a new standard for creating and using directories across networkssuch as the Internet and will allow Mail and News to access remote LDAP directories and services.What does this mean for the average user? Not much. The new Mail and Newsare visually identical to the previous version and no LDAP directoriescurrently exist for the user to access. On the other hand, Microsoft hasalso announced partnerships with LDAP directory services such as 411, BigFoot, Switchboard, and WhoWhere, which means that users soon will be able to seamlessly connect to these services when they search for someone'semail address. This works by having the user press the 'To:' button tosearch for an e-mail address and have the query answered by the LDAPservices. I have tested this feature, and it is surprisingly fast andaccurate.Like the auto search feature in Internet Explorer 3.x, I suspect only themost savvy of users will use this improvement. Of course, since you arereading this newsletter, chances are that you are among that group. I suggest downloading the 1 Mb update