Comments on: Thunderbird — Differences

By: eamon fitzpatrick

eamon fitzpatrick — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 09:04:12 +0000

We would love to use thunderbird as an enterprise type product. In fact I just evaluated it (again) and it failed due to a lack of hide deleted items in IMAP folders and no auto dial/hang for dial up. On the plus side lightning/sunbird is getting extremely good (but can causes major screen space problems, has poor syncML support and should not post items to unticked calenders).

Our organisation could financially contribute (in our small way) to thunderbird/lightining/sunbird if it did the above but it cant so we cant(chicken and egg)

On the subject of webmail, our organisations email system (mdeamon) offers it and even though its done very well everybody uses outlook express/outlook. I use thunderbird at home as do my parents and sisters HOWEVER the kids use web mail and instant messaging. I think the web mail usage is probably appropriate due to casual use (same for on-line only calendering)however local clients tend to make the whole process so much quicker/smoother (unless you use outlook 2007..slllooooowww).

By: jigar shah

jigar shah — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 18:34:50 +0000

Hi mitchel
Don’t you think fury of people is because of overall outlook of mozilla rather than because of your email call to action ?

what Eddy Nigg says does make sense. We have plenty of scope for evolving for enterprise. We don’t want Exchange / Outlook stuff on system. And about Youngster’s using other way to communicate (I understand social networking:))..can we have Something like “extension” for tht ? Like gmail ?
About “People not using desktop client”…
Internet in rest of the world is not really broadband. And there are limitation of online Web 2.0 Email clients. They are not perfect and do not have enough flexibility. All of them have some limitation tht cannot be ignored. And feature addition is not really easy. And most importantly…they do not follow “Open email” most of them ask for “pay for premium service”

“Thunderbird is much closer to an enterprise product.”
Thts true and don’t you see revenue coming up from there ? A branded TB ? Or enterprise Addressbook with synchronisation ? A Task management with calender feature ?

By: Wayne Mery

Wayne Mery — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 11:47:00 +0000

“… Eudora came to be somehow a part of the Mozilla projects, just in time for them to dump it off on someone else, …”

Eudora also came with 4+ full time paid developers, still employed by Qualcomm iirc, for a significant period of time to effect the transition.

By: Jason

Jason — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 05:22:25 +0000

It is absolutely clear that there is nothing anyone could do or say to even get this gentleman to even consider alternatives to his judgement. It is set in stone. Too bad, as it is his loss.

One thing I am really concerned with is the fact that just this last year, Eudora came to be somehow a part of the Mozilla projects, just in time for them to dump it off on someone else, or in politically correct corporate terms, divest it.

By: Asa Dotzler

Asa Dotzler — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 17:36:01 +0000

Bapiste, IMAP, POP and SMTP are not in jeopardy. They are long documented standards with literally hundreds of high-quality implementations competing and innovating all the time. They are used by the overwhelming majority of people doing email and while a few big webmail companies are growing, with Hotmail and Yahoo in the lead, we’re not really in a position with Thunderbird to force them to be more open. We can, with Firefox, lead them in the right direction by offering features like off-line support and others.

By: Baptiste

Baptiste — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 13:14:27 +0000

I fail to see how IMAP is farther from the “core of the web” than internet music programs. IMAP is important for the openness of the Internet, beeing the most currently use open protocol for the exchange of user data. This is basically a freedom problem. Do you want a web where users control their own data, where interoperability for data exists, where users can switch providers. Or do you prefer them to be tied to Google or Microsoft. It looks like the MoFo is not willing to help users protect their freedom from the oh so cool bounds of webmail. This is why you get well deserved criticism from the rest of the free software community.

By: Asa Dotzler

Asa Dotzler — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 03:50:38 +0000

“Aren’t we already approaching the critical mass needed to push open standards?”

Do we have enough influence today, through Firefox marketshare, to promote and preserve choice and innovation on the internet? I’d say no. What is that number? My view is about twice what we have now and then we have to show that we can hold it. We’ve got our foot in the door and that’s great but we and the web are far from “safe”

Just my views.

- A

By: Karel Koubek

Karel Koubek — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 14:51:54 +0000

I don’t get it,
Firefox adoption still rises, globally accounting for about 15% (more than 20% in Europe). Aren’t we already approaching the critical mass needed to push open standards?
If so, why focus on Firefox even more and get rid of the manifold projects under the Mozilla umbrella that were there from the beginning?

From my point of view, if it’s not about revenue (as you repeatedly reassured us), it certainly is about market share. In two of your blogs you reminded how many millions of users use this or that product (or the ratio between them) as one of your arguments.

Mitchell, do you think that this sort of mindset would get Mozilla to where it is nowadays?

You like to use the word ecosystem. You’ll certainly agree with me, that strong focus on one member of the family at the expense of others can only hurt the variety and ecosystem of Mozilla projects and actually what *Mozilla* is.

By: Heinz

Heinz — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 13:25:51 +0000

Email, like we use it today is a dead end. When Firefox wasn’t widespread the www has also been dead. Firefox changed the internet and smoothed the way for web 2.0.
But Thunderbird is still a “old” email client with no innovation. How can somebody expect a big and young userbase?

There are many things that are possible to improve, ranging from blog-integration to connections with social sites (and from there could also come the money). Perhaps even instant messenger or p2p-sharing (like allpeers) would be usefull. There are many possibilites. Thunderbird needs to develop and become a communications center, then it could become even to Firefox. But with email only Thunderbird wont win the cup.

With few resources and cut of from the main community the future looks dark for Thunderbird.

By: Chris Jones

Chris Jones — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 11:21:05 +0000

To my mind, Thunderbird should intentionally go after the enterprise market.
For years now the world has been desperate for an alternative to Exchange&Outlook (if only because of the pricetag).
Most of the pieces exist to make this happen, it just needs an interested party with some cash to integrate everything and push it over the finish line with an eye to open standards so anyone else can integrate support for it.
I would have thought this is exactly the kind of thing Mozilla Foundation could excel at - it has one highly successful product and some others that are under-engineered. It also has a stack of cash and buckets of mindshare.