A Sherpa reader just wrote in, "Have you written any articles or had any case studies on HTML vs. text on the b-to-b side?"

Yup, we've been asking every B2B emailer we talk to that question for two years now. The consensus is that HTML works far better in terms of clicks... HOWEVER, it's dangerous to use in B2B if you're trying to reach certain audiences --

- Anyone with a Lotus email system -- Lotus gives a mistaken impression that it can read HTML and so the MIME message it shows is the wrong part... pretty awful. Lots of Fortune 1000s use Lotus.

- Anyone using Groupwise email software from Novell -- a similar problem. Also larger orgs

- Anyone whose IT/MIS dept has made the unilateral decision to block or strip HTML to save their system space -- happens more than you think

- Anyone who uses PDAs to read stuff (which often also give false results to MIME so it's gobbledegook)