Question: Maple worksheets and Microsoft Exchange Mail Servers

Our university has recently begun a migration to an Exchange based e-mail system. With this change we are no longer able to send Maple worksheets (.mw files) as simple attachments to our messages. Here is the latest (and most informative) information I have received about this situation:

UTS(University Technology Services) has informed us that users of webmail.sc.edu will need to zip/unzip
the maple worksheets before they send/receive it as an attachment
using the University email system. According to UTS, the explanation from Microsoft is
OWA(outlook web access) is “by design” to block (by the Microsoft Exchange server)
the attachments that are in xml format, which is used by Maple 12 worksheets.
There is no other solution to this problem at this point.

Please inform your students that they will have to zip up any maple worksheet before
they attach it to any email. Email recipient will also need to unzip the maple worksheet attachment
before he/she can view it.

Has anyone else encountered this problem?

Any suggestions on how to address this?

While it's not difficult to ZIP/unZIP worksheets, it's easy to forget. And, I believe, the system does not notify you that it has stripped an attachment - the recipient just does not receive it.

Is there any official position on this from Maplesoft?

If this is a real issue, what does this say about the future of XML as a base for saving files (Maple or other applications)?

Looking forward to the discussion,

Doug