Newbie question: SMTP -> SQL Server

[jrpfinch]

I have an externally-written piece of software that spits out emails
using SMTP (a few hundred per hour) and I would like to dump the
content of them in an MS SQL Server database.

I have barely used Python before but it looks as if it could do the
job.  I have no experience with mail agents.  My starting point is this
recipe:

http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/Cookbook/Python/Recipe/440690

I know that there are various libraries that can connect to MS SQL
server and I am going to research these.

I have two questions:

i)  Does this sound like an efficient way of transferring data to the
database?
ii)  Looking through the Python documentation, I cannot see a way to
set the password on the SMTP server.  I would like to have a password -
does anyone know how to use the recipe above to set one?

Any other useful nudges in the right direction appreciated.

Many thanks

Jon