Testing Process
Phase I Testing
Phase I testing was conducted to narrow the set of products for a more in-depth review. Candidate products in this phase of testing were:
- Netscape Messenger v4.05
- Microsoft Internet Explorer v4.01
- Eudora 4.0 (Win95/WinNT)
- Mulberry 1.3.3
The following platforms were tested during Phase I:
- MacOS (8.1 on PPC)
- Win95 (any version on a Pentium or above)
- WinNT WS (4.0 on a Pentium or above)
- Win98 - time permitting (any version on a Pentium or above)
The following functional criteria were considered "showstoppers" if they were not supported by the test products during Phase I:
- Search for messages in folders on the Server and the local desktop.
- Support for filtering of incoming and existing messages on the server and the local desktop.
- Support for SMTP, POP3, IMAP4.x and LDAP directory service.
- Support for a variety of attachment types such as MIME, UUENCODE and
BINHEX
A detailed test 'script' was developed. Team members tested the products on various platforms and the
results were carefully documented. All four Phase I products were ranked in a matrix.
Phase II Testing
The top two products ranked in Phase I, Netscape Messenger and Eudora Pro, advanced to Phase II Testing, which consisted of more IMAP-specific conditions/functionalities testing to identify an application that meets as many of the listed conditions/functionalities
as possible. In particular, the Task Force tested:
- Interoperability between ELM and the candidate product.
- Support for working offline.
- An easy migration path from currently-deployed e-mail clients like Eudora or Elm.
The results of Phase II testing indicated that Netscape Messenger was the best product based on Penn's requirements.
EMTF
