Setup email server to respond to emails sent to an account

Hi,

This is a newbie question... I want to create a service which responds to emails sent to it.

Just to illustrate. If a user sends an email to handlethis@example.com with some instructions, I want a program at example.com (which is a domain I own) to read the email and act accordingly.

I strongly doubt I can do this with standard web hosts (which are shared), so I welcome suggestions on where I can host something like this (at the cheapest rate).

What will the "program" be written in? Can I use php, etc or is it some specific "email-handling" language!?

Thanks! S

From stackoverflow

• FWIW, I think this question should be posed on serverfault.com rather than here.

  I confirm this is something most shared hostings can't do: You need to be able to create a scheduled task/cron job which checks your e-mail account every x minutes.

  You might consider a virtual server hosting. A bit more pricey but much more flexible.

  The script would be written in php on Linux or in VBS/JScript/.NET on Windows. I've written such a script in JScript on Windows, using a component that implements POP3.