Hi, thanks for taking the time to help me out!

Please Note that the answer to this question will only be useful to me
if I receive it by Friday night (May 7).

You might also want to refer to my tipping information at the bottom
of this message.

Now the problem...

I am planning to develop a communication system in our company, and
was considering going with either Outlook *2003* or Sharepoint Server
2003.  But did not know enough to make my mind.

Since automation of tasks (programmatic) is cruicial to this project,
I needed a detailed, analytical comparison of the capabilities of
these two tools...

In your analysis, please include the comparison of the automation of
at least the following funcationalities:

1. Creating folders (whether it be any type of folder in OL - Public,
personal, etc. - or in SP)

2. Setting folder permission settings (public folders in OL vs.
folders in SharePoint)

3. Setting alerts so that if a file is sent to a folder in SharePoint,
an email is sent to only a 'particular' group of people, not
necessarily the same group as that of another folder's audience
(please only focus on Sharepoint alerts setting here - Using ASP, etc
- because in OL I know how this is done)

Regarding this, you might want to consider the feasibility of
implementing these in OL through VBSCript, and then also in Sharepoint
with ASP.NET.  Are there any other "more useful" programming options
that can be used in Sharepoint than ASP that are worth considering? 
((Please focus on the programmatical automation aspect))

It would be much appreciated if you could provide code snippets as well.

--- 
The tip:
If you get back to me by noon May 7, I'll tip you an extra $8.
If you get back to me by noon May 7, I'll tip you an extra $5.

Thanks for your help, I'm really desparate for it!
Thanks!