What's the most efficient way to link two remote offices to "share" e-mail

[Biggs]

Here's the scenario,

There are two offices located in different countries. Both offices have an "always on" Internet connection, a static IP address, and are inter-connected through VPN. Without using a mail server or an IMAP service, is there a way for both to "share" e-mail? This means that,

-Office A would house the server that downloads the mails from its ISP via POP
-Local intranet users of Office A would be able to share a single e-mail account across multiple workstations using the same e-mail client software (say Netcape Mail)
-Local intranet users of Office B, interconnected through VPN and using a mapped drive to the VPN server of local intranet users of Office A, would also be able to share a single e-mail account across multiple workstations using the same e-mail client

Another way of putting it is that all users from both offices should be able to read, send, and receive messages as if they were all queueing on a single computer. For example, when a user from office A checks his/her e-mail, he/she should be able to read all the sent and received messages by all the users in both offices. Likewise, if a user from office B sends out a message (e.g. to Yahoo mail), everybody would be able to view this on their respective e-mail client's sent messages folder.

Now, is this setup possible? If so, what's the most efficient method in implementing it? Many thanks.

 

[gsaldivar]

I used to work for a company that did something similar to this within a proprietary BBS/groupware software called FirstClass.

It's been a LOOOONG time since I've used it, but I remember it being extremely flexible and easy to use. There are several ways in which this software allows you to setup users so that they have access to others' files/e-mail and a "communal" file/e-mail pool.


EDIT:

I just found this link to the demo.

Hope this helps!