Question: How to create an smtp connection to any given localized MTA, without relaying through a central MTA. Details: A global company (the group) is headquartered in Scandinavia. 25+ companies comprise the group around the world, each company with its own mailserver and mailserver software. The group encourages the companies to act in a decentralized manner, except in some things...the group wants to consolidate email addresses across the group, i.e.. Xx.yy@groupname.com, regardless of where the mail account lives, yet still give local control over the email server. Currently we see xx.yy@groupname.de, xx.yy@mygroupname.com, etc. Currently all email is relayed through a central server in group HQ to the individual company mail servers. The problem is that email (often large drawings) sent by a customer in California must traverse the mailserver in Scandinavia before being forwarded to a mailserver in California where the recipient's account lives. The other significant issue is that based on past history, the individual companies are extremely hesitant at best to entrust email robustness to HQ. Sub-optimal solutions: 1. Centralize all email in one location on a big server farm...same problems as mentioned above. 2. Use a dns redirector to find the nearest MX based on incoming ip address in DNS request...sub-optimal, as this will only deliver email to the nearest MTA based on ip address allocations. Doesn't solve the problem of an email being sent to the wrong mx server (all mailservers would need to be able to handle an email delivered to it even if the account isn't local...more centralization). This would solve some of the problems with one centralized server farm if there was a globally distributed network of core mail servers, but sacrifices autonomy. 3. Change company policy to reflect names like xx.yy@us.groupname.com, xx.yy@uk.groupname.com, etc, where DNS would resolve to the correct server. Doesn't give corporate the "email image" they are after. 4. Change robustness level at group HQ for relay to individual mail servers...we need a solution in my lifetime. Has anyone got any other ideas on how to skin this cat with a technological solution not mentioned? Thanks, Andrew