Description
AOCE's Open Directory and related software introduced the concept of directory entries (such as business cards) as first-class desktop objects. This was used to create a drag-and-drop metaphor for mail, fax, and other directory-based activities. Each endpoint, a mail server for instance, was driven by a plug-in extension that was driven by a common AOCE-supplied queue and queue viewer. PowerTalk provided a set of standard forms for interacting with the items in the queues, and a common interface for mail, and a universal mailbox. Encryption was supported by a single "keychain" that remembered all your passwords and digital signatures, encrypting them together so only a single password needed to be remembered.
The system was designed in an era when there were many e-mail formats and services, including online services such as CompuServe and AppleLink, networking standards like X.400 and SMTP (internet mail) and LAN-based servers such as Microsoft Mail and QuickMail. In order to support this diverse environment, AOCE included a robust layered protocol stack that, in theory, could be used with practically any store-and-forward type of environment. This was used within AOCE not only to service mail, but faxes, printing and even directly sending files from one machine to another without enclosing them in a mail message or needing a file server.
Adoption of AOCE among 3rd party developers was slow due to a ferociously complicated API. The book documenting the system was larger than all of the books describing the rest of the pre-System 7 Macintosh put together. Adding a simple feature like "mail this document" to an application required wading through hundreds of pages of documentation, and writing a core AOCE component was many times more complex.
Several parts of the AOCE engine were useful on their own, notably the Keychain. However in order to get the keychain, you had to install all of AOCE, a cost the users were not willing to pay. Many years later the keychain was finally shipped as a stand-alone component in Mac OS 9. The encryption/signing support is arguably also useful (although not widely used in the "real world"), and it has reappeared in Apple's bundled Mail application starting with Mac OS X 10.2 Jaguar in August 2002.
Read more about this topic: Apple Open Collaboration Environment
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