Sure, but Notes was built for a world where ccMail, MS Mail, and GroupWise were the main workgroup email systems.

Notes followed a similar pattern, with a proprietary "post office" system with optional gateways to larger x.400 / SMTP / UUCP / OfficeVision networks for those who needed them.

Going SMTP (or even x.400)-native from the start might have been a better choice in the long run, but that's only clear in retrospect - it certainly wasn't obvious at the time.

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p_l 3 hours ago | parent [-]

Exchange is funny because it's X.400 native internally, even if recently they dropped external X.400 support

	▲	roryirvine 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Yeah, Exchange is a good comparator because it shows what the mail aspect of Notes might have been like had it been designed in the mid 90s rather than the late 80s. It's hard now to appreciate how different corporate IT was from the free-wheeling Internet world. The unexpected popularity of the web really did change everything.