Message Handling System (MHS) is an important early email protocol developed by Action Technologies, Inc. (ATI) in 1986.

Novell Novell, Inc. was an American software and services company headquartered in Provo, Utah, that existed from 1980 until 2014. Its most significant product was the multi- platform network operating system known as Novell NetWare. Under the l ...

licensed it in 1988 then later bought it.

Email clients

A wide variety of email clients used MHS, including: *

Para-Mail Para Mail was a proprietary, electronic mail client that was developed and maintained by Kris Land and his team. It was originally released in 1985 for MS-DOS, but was subsequently ported to Microsoft Windows. A version for Apple Macintosh als ...

- Paradox Development introduced version 2.0 along with Novell at Comdex 1986. *

DaVinci Email Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (15 April 14522 May 1519) was an Italian polymath of the High Renaissance who was active as a painter, draughtsman, engineer, scientist, theorist, sculptor, and architect. While his fame initially rested on ...

- The first Microsoft Windows-based email client used MHS natively. *

Pegasus Mail Pegasus Mail is a proprietary email client developed by David Harris (who also develops the Mercury Mail Transport System). It was originally released in 1990 for internal and external mail on NetWare networks with MS-DOS and later Apple Maci ...

- A free mail client, this used MHS its native protocol. * ExpressIT! and ExpressIT! 2000 - Infinite Technologies' MHS compliant email clients. * FirstMail - A cut-down version of

, bundled with some versions of

NetWare NetWare is a discontinued computer network operating system developed by Novell, Inc. It initially used cooperative multitasking to run various services on a personal computer, using the IPX network protocol. The original NetWare product i ...

. * Futurus TEAM - Early groupware package offering an MHS compliant email client. * MacAccess - An Apple Macintosh MHS-based email client.

Role as a gateway

MHS was a very 'open' system, and this, with Novell's encouragement, made it popular in the early 1990s as a 'glue' between not only the proprietary email systems of the day such as PROFS, SNADS, MCI,

3+Mail 3 (three) is a number, numeral and digit. It is the natural number following 2 and preceding 4, and is the smallest odd prime number and the only prime preceding a square number. It has religious or cultural significance in many societies ...

, cc:Mail,

and Microsoft Mail, but also the competing standards-based

SMTP The Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) is an Internet standard communication protocol for electronic mail transmission. Mail servers and other message transfer agents use SMTP to send and receive mail messages. User-level email clients typic ...

and

X.400 X.400 is a suite of ITU-T Recommendations that defines the ITU-T Message Handling System (MHS). At one time, the designers of X.400 were expecting it to be the predominant form of email, but this role has been taken by the SMTP-based Internet e-m ...

. However, by 1996 it was very clear that SMTP over the Internet would take over this role.

Work-alike products

A compatible family of products from Infinite Technologies (now Captaris) and marketed under the name Connect2''"...offers improved performance, greater reliability and much more flexibility in everything from communications hardware to scheduling..."''
{{webarchive, url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140330215111/http://www.networkworld.com/archive/1994/94-03-07hot_.html , date=2014-03-30 , 03/07/94, Mark Gibbs, Network World were also very widely used as part of MHS-based email networks.

Decline

Novell became increasingly less supportive after their 1994 purchase of WordPerfect as they worked to transform WordPerfect Office into

GroupWise GroupWise is a messaging and collaboration platform from Micro Focus that supports email, calendaring, personal information management, instant messaging, and document management. The GroupWise platform consists of desktop client software, which ...

. At about the same time, confidence in the future of

collapsed and

email across the public

internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a ''internetworking, network of networks'' that consists ...

became the compelling choice for mail between unrelated organisations, replacing MHS's former "glue" role.

References

Para-Mail from Paradox Development Corporation was the first email package to be brought into Novell and MHS. Paradox Development Corporation introduced Para-Mail version 2.0 with Novell at Comdex 1986.

External links

Chronology
Action Technologies

Novell Email systems