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SMTP stands for "Simple Mail Transfer Protocol", and it is the standard mechanism for delivering e-mail across the Internet. Unless your organization uses Microsoft Exchange, your e-mail program probably uses SMTP. Even if you do use Exchange, when it sends e-mails to systems outside your organization, it likely uses SMTP. This makes SMTP widely supported and nearly ubiquitous.
MAPI stands for "Messaging Application Programming Interface", and it's the primary tool for automating Microsoft Outlook.
How do you choose between the two? If you don't use both Microsoft Exchange and Microsoft Outlook (not Outlook Express, and not Microsoft Mail), the choice is made for you: SMTP. If you do use both Exchange and Outlook, then there are trade-offs to consider.
Pro/Con |
SMTP |
MAPI |
Pro |
Easy to diagnose if there are problems by using a protocol analyzer. |
Sent messages appear in your Outbox. |
Con |
Most Exchange installations don't support SMTP out of the box. |
From and Reply-to addresses cannot be set on a letter-by-letter basis: all appear to come from the Outlook account used to send the messages. |
VSys One can only send e-mail via Outlook if Outlook is running on the same machine that VSys is. If VSys and Outlook are both running on your workstation, or both are on a Citrix or Remote Desktop server (the same server), VSys can "see" Outlook and send mail using it. If they're on different machines then VSys cannot connect to Outlook.