New ROM allows alternate SMTP auth

[Dave Beauvais]

As I was setting up e-mail accounts in the Messaging app after installing the new ROM update on my hx4700, I stumbled across a new feature I haven't seen mentioned in any forums or release notes. You can now authenticate to the SMTP server using alternate credentials! This is something I've needed to do for a long time because the outgoing mail server I need to use for two accounts doesn't use the same login info as the incoming mail server. You can also now enable or disable SSL connections separately for incoming and outgoing servers. A welcome change that I'm surprised hasn't been mentioned before in any threads I could find. (If it has been mentioned, I humbly apologize, but I couldn't find any mention of it.) :-)

http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/media/users/2037/wm2003se_smtp1.png

http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/media/users/2037/wm2003se_smtp2.png

[boyce]

Sounds great but what does it mean in practical terms?

[applejosh]

In practical terms, those that need to logon to their SMTP (outgoing) server using a name/password that isn't the same as the incoming (POP3) server now have the ability to send mail. If it didn't affect you before, it's nothing new for you, but it does help those who had a different set of circumstances.

[Dave Beauvais]

This is useful when your incoming and outgoing mail servers are from different companies and the outgoing server requires authentication in order to send e-mail. For example, the outgoing mail server operated by the organization I work for requires users to authenticate to the outgoing mail server in order to send e-mail while off the organization's network. The down side is that to prevent the sending of spam, it's further restricted to prevent sending e-mail to anyone outside the organization. Due to the nature of my work, this is inconvenient since I often have to send messages to people outside the organization while not connected to a work network. This doesn't work well for me, so I've had the need to use another mail server that lets me send messages to people outside the organization.

Until the addition of this feature, I've been unable to do this using the built-in Inbox/Messaging application because if I checked the box that stated the outgoing mail server required authentication, it used the username and password for the incoming mail server. If my incoming mail server was my work server but the outgoing was the mail server in my domain, this wouldn't work since my work username doesn't exist on my domain's server. Now, with this new Messaging version, I can use my work incoming mail server and my domain's mail server for outgoing mail and authenticate to each one using different usernames and passwords.

[Janak Parekh]

It's about freaking time. :D Let's hope WM5 devices have this implemented uniformly.

--janak