Vendor Independent Messaging (VIM)

VIM (Vendor Independent Messaging) is an application program interface (API) that facilitates the exchange of e-mail and attachments between programs from different vendors.

From a user standpoint, VIM works in a manner similar to the Microsoft Messaging Application Program Interface (MAPI). The first implementation of VIM to appear on the market was cc:Mail, which was released by Lotus, now a division of IBM.

Vim, a similarly-named but unrelated application, is an enhanced version of the vi text editor distributed with UNIX systems.