Hello All _ _ This notice has very little to do with the normal proceedings of a group happily focussed on *nix. HOWEVER .. many of US do service Customers outside that happy world .. and .. Redmond hath spoken .. and .. _ _ Many of our Customers have been receiving MTS notices recently, about "CHANGES". There is suggestion of a "window" to respond to a transit/MIGRATE away from the current [ms-withdrawn] email service, to MTS/Alliance -hosted service, now called "MTS Mail". ( Does this ring a bell ? Yes. Only four years back. Let's not go into those old, buggy extrusions .. for now.) Today's (2015-02-28) WpgFreePress had a G.Kirbyson article, quoting a MTS/Alliance honcho " .. Melanie McKague, director of corporate communications and community investment .. " saying there is a "slick tool" ON THE WEBSITE. http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/business/frustratingmtsnet-292868671.html This came as some surprise to an internal source, with whom I spoke this (28th) evening. I had entertained a call from (more than) one client - to help with transition. So, I showed up at one customer's site tonight. I am not cheap. No such "tool" was to be found. This made things UNCOMFORABLE, to say the least. And that, from all of our-side good intentions, adequate advance notice by MTS/Alliance emals to so many, to the subject, AND today's major-media publication, SAYING THERE WAS A TOOL ON THEIR WEBSITE. Our very helpful MTS/Alliance tech (sshh:Thomas), whom I was able to contact later in the evening's sortie, said he [paraphrase] <<had instructions to "not encourage" use of that tool>> for MOVING EMAIL OFF MS, onto MTS/Alliance's new scheme. YET. He also invited a [forward] of the clients (there are more than one) who received emails describing "15 days" .. "window deadline" .. etc. Go ahead .. waste your time on the rather wordy, ostensibly helpful FAQ page at MTS/Alliance. [Yawn] THERE IS NO DIRECT LINK, as of this last evening (Feb.28) TO ANY SUCH TOOL, contrary to the FP interview's MTS contact's statement (her word "slick" may resonate). BESIDES: There will be numerous reasons for us to hold back from "jumping on" with any transition tool, if our experience(s) with up to 3rd iteration/revision of "helpful tool" from 4yrs back, would be any indication. This unilateral withdrawal of service by <<golden opportunity outsource>> [quote:cca2010] Microsoft .. from hapless, trusting-in-outsource victim/sucker MTS/Alliance is actually deadlined (beside local discussions of "window") for the end of 2015. NOW, we, in jeopardy, in practical terms, should expect the real window, before [further unilateral] withdrawal of this ill-fated proxy delegation, should be a bit short of that. I will encourage my people to observe, patiently, at least a month of commentary about whatever "slick tool" is on offer, as to how it succeeds in data migration, before we attempt any transition. I DO NOT SUGGEST "WE" BECOME SUCH A FORUM .. although I would look to "our" discussion before many others' discussions. I immediately took an inventory of [my clients in the range of] people I expect to help through this horrid [re-]imposition. MANY are NOT INDEPENDENT of WHERE THEIR EMAIL DATA RESIDES. By this, I mean that Enough of those people happened to trust the rather big service providers (MTS/Alliance, Microsoft) and STAYED WITH REMOTE ACCESS (webclient) meaning REMOTE DATA. MEANING they will have to RELY ON A MIGRATION TOOL, should they "need" their email data to survive [again]. Of course, real transitions, especially for such IMAP, or POPx clients, who do not use local clients (who do not have full copy at a local station), will have to be CAREFULLY MANAGED. TheEasySide: Should you have a customer using (across the board of their nway field of mtsEmailClients) Local Clients [meaning local client (e.g:TBird on POPx) has recently fetched all traffic / all content] then you need worry less about Data in the transition. Simply change your source links' parameters, on a slow night/wknd. IN ADVANCE, should you choose to move your clients to a local-client (local data) scheme, like Thunderbird, then after the initial huge-sync, you only have to manage any duplicate fetch-stations, and either make them all say "Leave Data On Server", or pick a station to be BossOfEmail. If your customers have been using MS' webclient or other MS-approach - YOU WILL NEED TO CAREFULLY perform the "eventual" MTS migration tool procedure. [sigh] John D