> Email’s fourth advantage is that it’s a store and forward system. People don’t have to be online at the same time to exchange emails, and the emails can be ke

> Email’s fourth advantage is that it’s a store and forward system. People don’t have to be online at the same time to exchange emails, and the emails can be kept for future reference. They can also be forwarded to other people, or printed out. I believe they understand the whole store and forward model wrong. We call email a store and forward system because every SMTP server (except the final one, which performs only the first 2 steps): 1) receives a message, 2) stores it and 3) then forwards it to another SMTP server. Everything happens absolutely automatically, without any user interaction. No SMTP server has to be online (except for the first one, which receives the message from the user) at the same time for email to work. The article's author seems to incorrectly believe that "store and forward system" means that mail is stored in users' mailboxes and users can resend (forward) that mail. But in reality, "forward" in "store and forward" has nothing to do with the forwarding most email users deal with on a daily basis. The whole "store and forward" is about actions performed by SMTP servers, not email users.