Sorry, I'm not much for SMTP servers, I thought running a Connecter would be essentially running a relay server, which I very much am not doing since I used SMTP.office365.com. So my answer there is either No or I don't know.
Newest firmware is nearly useless as a term, there is the newest available on Xerox.com, the newest available within the printer when you check for upddates and the newest spar version, and all 3 are and can be different. Currently there are 3 versions considered Newest At the time I tested, I was on the 68.10.71 PL1-R1 release
027-779, = Invalid SMTP auth (Usually means you picked the wrong option at the bottom [device vs network])
027-778, = Incorrect SMTP auth (it's a login failure)
016-781= Absolutely no connection and should only be seen in cases where you used an IP address, not a hostname like I did.