Tim Howes (b. September 21, 1963) is the co-inventor of the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP), the Internet standard for accessing directory servers. The main purpose was to handle situations that the X.500 protocol suite could not address.X.500 directories list network resources to make finding them and using them easier for network administrators and users. Unfortunately, accessing X.500 records has required a full-blown X.500 server; there was no such thing as an X.500 client.