In theory, MSAP would address that and have systems in place for backwards compatibility and communicate with the older SMTP protocol (and IMAP if necessary) while things move forward.
If someone else has already done some great work and made it open, brilliant! Use it :-)
Waves solves communication, obviously. And waves feel more like personal forum threads than anything else.
But the true intentions of MSAP go beyond email and to synchronization. And in retrospect I should have addressed that more in my post...
I think this will take a lot more than a single blow.
But its set to replace IMAP/Exchange/SMTP.