Internet e-mail bridge

• US 20030177188A1
• Filed: 03/14/2002
• Published: 09/18/2003
• Est. Priority Date: 03/14/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Brubacher, Douglas K., Passuello, Luciano
• Granted Patent: US 7,865,554 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/206
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/107 Computer-aided management of electronic mailing [e-mailing]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/066 Format adaptation, e.g. format conversion or compression
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/42 Mailbox-related aspects, e.g. synchronisation of mailboxes
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/56 Unified messaging, e.g. interactions between e-mail, instant messaging or converged IP messaging [CPM]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/10 in which an application is distributed across nodes in the network software deployment G06F8/60; multiprogramming arrangements G06F9/46

Abstract

An Internet mail bridge is provided for downloading e-mail messages from Internet mail servers supporting different e-mail access protocols, such as the Post Office Protocol 3 (POP3) and Web Distributed Authoring and Versioning (Web DAV) protocol, and delivering the downloaded messages, which are in different formats, to a mail server on a local area network. The Internet mail bridge has a mail manager that is independent from particular e-mail protocols or e-mail formats. For each e-mail account, the mail manager instantiates a mail connector object that contains logic for downloading e-mail according to the e-mail access protocol of that account, and invokes the mail connector object to download e-mail messages from that account. The mail manager then instantiates and invokes mail deliverer objects tailored for handling different message formats to deliver the downloaded messages to the local mail server.

Claims

1. A computer-readable medium having computer-executable instructions for performing steps for retrieving e-mail messages from a plurality of Internet e-mail accounts to a mail server of a local area network, the Internet e-mail accounts being at a plurality of Internet e-mail servers supporting different e-mail access protocols, the steps comprising:

retrieving, for each of the Internet e-mail accounts, an e-mail account record identifying an e-mail access protocol to be used for downloading e-mail messages from said each Internet e-mail account;

instantiating a connector object having logic for downloading e-mail according to the e-mail access protocol of said each Internet e-mail account; and

invoking the connector object for said each Internet e-mail account to download e-mail messages in said each Internet e-mail account.

2. A computer-readable medium as in claim 1, wherein the step of instantiating includes retrieving a connector identifier associated with the e-mail access protocol of said each Internet e-mail account, and wherein the instantiated connector object corresponds to the connector identifier.

3. A computer-readable medium as in claim 1, wherein the step of invoking includes storing each of the e-mail messages downloaded from said each Internet mail account in a mail queue with format identification data identifying a message format of said each downloaded e-mail message.

4. A computer-readable medium as in claim 3, having further computer-executable instructions for performing the steps of:

selecting, for each downloaded e-mail message in the mail queue, a mail deliverer object corresponding to a message format identified by the message format data of said each downloaded e-mail message; and

invoking the mail deliverer object for said each downloaded e-mail message to deliver said each downloaded e-mail message to the mail server on the local area network.

5. A computer-readable medium as in claim 1, having further computer-executable instructions for performing the step of obtaining a thread for each of the Internet e-mail accounts, and wherein the steps of instantiating and invoking for each Internet e-mail account are performed within the thread for said each Internet e-mail account.

6. A computer-readable medium having computer-executable modules for retrieving, for an e-mail server of a local area network, e-mail messages from e-mail accounts at a plurality of Internet e-mail servers supporting different e-mail access protocols, comprising:

a plurality of e-mail connectors, each e-mail connector having logic for downloading e-mail according to one of the e-mail access protocols;

a plurality of e-mail deliverers, each e-mail deliverer having logic for delivering downloaded messages in one of e-mail formats associated with the e-mail access protocols to the e-mail server on the local area network;

a download manager programmed to retrieve protocol information identifying an e-mail access protocol used for each Internet mail account and invoke one of the e-mail connectors corresponding to the e-mail access protocol of said each Internet mail account to download e-mail messages from said each Internet mail account;

a delivery manager programmed to select, for each downloaded e-mail message, a mail deliverer corresponding to a message format of said each downloaded e-mail message and invoke the selected mail deliverer to deliver said each downloaded e-mail message to the mail server of the local area network.

7. A computer-readable medium as in claim 6, having further computer-executable modules including:

a bridge service for initializing the download manager and the delivery manager according to a predefined schedule; and

an information store module for maintaining an information store for storing information including account information for the Internet mail accounts, the account information for each Internet mail account identifying an e-mail access protocol used by said each Internet mail account.

8. A computer-readable medium as in claim 6, wherein the mail deliverers include a first mail deliverer programmed to handle delivery of e-mail messages of a first message format by converting an e-mail message in the first format into a converted message of a second message format, and invoking a second mail deliverer for delivering e-mail messages in the second message format to transmit the converted message to the mail server of the local area network.

9. A method of transferring e-mail messages from a plurality of Internet e-mail accounts to a mail server of a local area network, the Internet e-mail accounts being at a plurality of Internet e-mail servers supporting different e-mail access protocols, comprising the steps of:

retrieving, for each of the Internet e-mail accounts, an e-mail account record identifying an e-mail access protocol to be used for downloading e-mail messages from said each Internet e-mail account;

instantiating a connector object having logic for downloading e-mail according to the e-mail access protocol of said each Internet e-mail account; and

invoking the connector object for said each Internet e-mail account to download e-mail messages in said each Internet e-mail account.

10. A method as in claim 9, wherein the step of instantiating includes retrieving a connector identifier associated with the e-mail access protocol of said each Internet e-mail account, and wherein the instantiated connector object corresponds to the connector identifier.

11. A method as in claim 9, wherein the step of invoking includes storing each of the e-mail messages downloaded from said each Internet mail account in a mail queue with format identification data identifying a message format of said each downloaded e-mail message.

12. A method as in claim 11, further including the steps of:

selecting, for each downloaded e-mail message in the mail queue, a mail deliverer object corresponding to a message format identified by the message format data of said each downloaded e-mail message; and

invoking the mail deliverer object for said each downloaded e-mail message to deliver said each downloaded e-mail message to the mail server on the local area network.

13. A method as in claim 9, further including the step of obtaining a thread for each of the Internet e-mail accounts, and wherein the steps of instantiating and invoking for each Internet e-mail account are performed within the thread for said each Internet e-mail account.