VIM has vigor. (Vendor Independent Messaging interface; Lotus Development Corp.) (Brief Article)

In September, seeking to strengthen its lead in the E-mail market, Lotus Development Corp. became the first company to deliver software that conforms to the Vendor Independent Messaging (VIM) interface. VIM, championed by Lotus Development and supported by IBM, Apple Computer, Novell, Borland International, and WordPerfect Corp., lets software developers easily write mail-enabled applications that run across multiple computing platforms.

"VIM is a single-user interface [developers] can write to," says Tim Dempsey, manager of developer relations for Lotus Development's Communications Products Division. Rather than writing several versions of an application in order to …