Open protocol Email servers were required for the first release of Waterloo Polaris. Previously, Watstar used a semi-proprietary method to manage Email.
Waterloo Polaris clients can work with any POP or IMAP Email servers.
Most faculties are running sendmail or procmail and the vendor's pop3 or pop4 and imap servers on some Unix platform.
MS Exchange and an NT server also works fine, but is not usually chosen in this environment. Such decisions are made by the local administrator.
In Engineering, for example, engmail is the faculty Email server. Anyone associated with the Faculty of Engineering is entitled to a free Email account on it. Engmail currently hosts about 7,000 userids because students have a Email presense even when away on workterms. The server enforces mail quota so no single user can fill the system. On a typical day, Engmail processes 15,000 Email messages.