Paul writes:

> The benefits of IMAP are obvious to everyone who has
> looked at it in any depth, and yet it is very thinly
> deployed. The main reason: the perceived additional
> administrative overhead.

A more significant reason, perhaps:  IMAP is a solution looking for a
problem, in most cases.  POP3 provides a way to move mail from a server to a
user agent, and that is all that is really required for 99% of all users.

Organizations that use IMAP are often in a position to simply adopt a
proprietary system with even more advanced functionality, such as Notes or
Exchange.  The average Internet user, however, has little incentive or need
to try IMAP.

> But they believe that the overhead of the needed
> trust system, and the cost of losing mail that didn't
> go through the trust system, is simply too high.

I agree.  Doing much more than they are doing now would get very expensive,
very quickly.


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