Internet e-mail bridge

1. A method for retrieving e-mail messages from a plurality of Internet e-mail accounts to a mail server of a local area network, the Internet e-mail accounts being at a plurality of Internet e-mail servers supporting different e-mail access protocols, the method comprising:

retrieving, for each of the Internet e-mail accounts, an e-mail account record identifying an e-mail access protocol to be used for downloading e-mail messages from said each Internet e-mail account;

instantiating a connector object having logic for downloading e-mail according to the e-mail access protocol of said each Internet e-mail account; and

invoking the connector object for said each Internet e-mail account to download e-mail messages in said each Internet e-mail account.

2. The method of in claim 1 , wherein instantiating the connector object comprises retrieving a connector identifier associated with the e-mail access protocol of said each Internet e-mail account, and wherein the instantiated connector object corresponds to the connector identifier.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein invoking the connector object comprises storing each of the e-mail messages downloaded from said each Internet mail account in a mail queue with format identification data identifying a message format of said each downloaded e-mail message.

4. The method of claim 3 , further comprising:

selecting, for each downloaded e-mail message in the mail queue, a mail deliverer object corresponding to a message format identified by the message format data of said each downloaded e-mail message; and

invoking the mail deliverer object for said each downloaded e-mail message to deliver said each downloaded e-mail message to the mail server on the local area network.

5. The method of claim 1 , further comprising obtaining a thread for each of the Internet e-mail accounts, and wherein the steps of instantiating and invoking for each Internet e-mail account are performed within the thread for said each Internet e-mail account.

6. A system comprising:

at least one processor; and

memory encoding computer executable instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, perform a method of retrieving messages from a first account and a second account, the method comprising:

retrieving a first message from the first account supporting a first protocol, wherein the first message is retrieved by invoking a first method having logic for retrieving the first message according to the first protocol;

retrieving a second message from the second account supporting a second protocol, wherein the second protocol is different from the first protocol, and wherein the second message is retrieved by invoking a second method having logic for retrieving the second message according to the second protocol; and

storing the first and second messages locally, wherein the first and second messages are accessible using a single application.

7. The system of claim 6 , wherein the method further comprises:

sending the first and second messages to a local server.

8. The system of claim 7 , wherein sending the first and second messages to a local mail server comprises:

invoking a third method having a first format-specific logic for delivering the first message to the local server; and

invoking a fourth method having a second format-specific logic for delivering the second message to the local server.

9. The system of claim 8 , wherein the third and fourth methods are invoked by a mail delivery manager.

10. The system of claim 6 , wherein the first and second methods are invoked according to a schedule.

11. The system of claim 6 , wherein the first and second methods are invoked by a mail download manager.

12. The system of claim 6 , wherein the first and second methods are invoked as separate threads.

13. The system of claim 6 , wherein storing the first and second messages locally comprises placing the first and second messages in a local mail queue.

14. The system of claim 6 , wherein the first protocol is the Post-Office-Protocol Version 3 (POP 3) protocol.

15. The system of claim 14 , wherein the second protocol is the Web Distribution and Authoring Versioning (Web DAV) protocol.

16. A method of retrieving messages from a first account and a second account, the method comprising:

retrieving a first message from the first account supporting a first protocol, wherein the first message is retrieved by invoking a first method having logic for retrieving the first message according to the first protocol;

retrieving a second message from the second account supporting a second protocol, wherein the second protocol is different from the first protocol, and wherein the second message is retrieved by invoking a second method having logic for retrieving the second message according to the second protocol; and

storing the first and second messages locally, wherein the first and second messages are accessible using a single application.

17. The system of claim 16 , wherein the method further comprises sending the first and second messages to a local server.

18. The method of claim 17 , wherein sending the first and second messages to a local mail server comprises:

invoking a third method having a first format-specific logic for delivering the first message to the local server; and

invoking a fourth method having a second format-specific logic for delivering the second message to the local server.

19. The method of claim 18 , wherein the third and fourth methods are invoked by a mail delivery manager.

20. The method of claim 16 , wherein the first and second methods are invoked according to a schedule.