The Gateway enables any OfficePower user in the mail network to send and receive messages with Internet mail users - be they mailboxes with ISPs or other non-OfficePower mail systems.

OfficePower has made sending to the Internet as easy as possible. Users can create simple Internet distribution list (address book) entries or just type the Internet address at the To prompt - its that simple.

Messages arriving from the Internet are presented in the same way as other OfficePower mail messages and can be replied and forwarded as usual. Friendly shortnames are used instead of unwieldy Internet addresses.

When sending to the Internet, OfficePower documents will, by default, be converted to a printable text format. A configuration option allows conversion to other formats (such as Word for Windows) if required. Users also have the option to convert on attaching when preparing messages.

Non-text attachments are encoded automatically by the gateway and all attachments are provided with a suitable file name (including appropriate file extension) ensuring that Internet mail users can extract the files as easily as possible.

(There is a separate fact sheet giving additional information on the OfficePower Mail Gateway.)

In OfficePower 2000 (or OfficePower/Xtra version 4 or 5), users can (optionally) access OfficePower email from a standard PC-based mail client, such as Microsoft Outlook. This capability is provided as standard with OfficePower, and requires only a few simple installation steps, plus the "registration" of the users who wish to use the facility.

Incoming mail is passed from the X.400 mail system to a POP3 mailbox via a mail filter set up by the individual user. You can thus choose to access all your mail via a PC client, or to pass across only selected mail messages.

Messages and text (or OfficePower-Word) attachments are converted as they are moved to the POP3 mailbox. Other attachments (including PC application files and other OfficePower objects) are passed across in their native format.

Once the mail filter is working, the user simply specifies the OfficePower server as the "incoming POP3 mail" server in his mail client, and logs on from the client using their normal OfficePower user name and password. Incoming messages (and their attachments) then appear in the client in the normal way.

Replies, or new messages, are sent from the PC mail client using SMTP, via the OfficePower Internet Gateway. The gateway may be running on your normal mail server, or on another server in the network - again, you normally need only one gateway in your OfficePower server network. Just specify the appropriate server name as the "outgoing SMTP mail server" in your client.

The combination of OfficePower's Internet Gateway and support for Internet Mail clients means you can use standard, freely-available PC software to communicate both with X.400 users and with Internet or Intranet addresses

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