>What do you mean with SMTP Component?

Something that is free standing and not a system component that can be disabled but not manipulated/installed by the application. CDO ships only on Win2000 and later (which may not be a problem, but...) and it can be (and often is) disabled as part of administrative policy because it is a system component that's often used by SPAM trojans to send email. If you embed email support into an application that ships to many locations that's a problem.

There are a number of third party tools that are self contained meaning that you install it and configure it and you know it's there for sure.

For internal needs where you have control over the environment CDO works fine.

Some third party tools include:

West Wind Internet Protocols (http://www.west-wind.com/wwIpstuff.asp)
Easy Mail Component
Mabry Mail Controls

Regards,

+++ Rick ---