In this chapter, we have dealt with the question of messaging with CDO for NTS in quite a lot of detail. Although CDO for NTS is one in what is now a fairly long line of messaging libraries released by Microsoft, I think it is evident that there is still a long way to go. As has been mentioned more than once in this chapter, the messaging support it provides is fairly meagre, given that it only supports SMTP mail and there is no real provision for delivering inbound mail to the desktop.
But it's a question of horses for courses. Although the SMTP Server that IIS 4.0 provides is of limited use, it is a lot cheaper, a lot thinner and a lot easier to maintain than a full-blown Exchange implementation.
One of the really useful features however, is the fact that applications that use CDO for NTS against the IIS 4.0 SMTP server will run against Exchange Server and CDO 1.2 without the need for extensive rewriting.
CDO 1.2 looks set to expand as well. The current release can render calendars into HTML in a daily and weekly view, but there is no support yet for monthly views. Also, there is no explicit support for either contacts or tasks, both of which will need to be implemented if contact management or workflow applications are to be developed without the need for awkward workarounds.
So the message is, if all you need is the capability to send out e-mail acknowledgements from your web site or are looking for a cheap method of implementing bulk mailing via web subscription, then get your teeth into CDO for NTS. But if you want anything more than that, then think carefully whether your time might be better spent developing with full-blown CDO 1.2 and Exchange 5.5.