Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

AOL Mail To Be Accessible Via IMAP

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the move-in-right-direction dept.

jfruhlinger writes "News.com.com is reporting that AOL's e-mail service, long accessible only via AOL's proprietary, monolithic app, will be available via IMAP starting Thursday. The story notes that this is part of a series of initiatives from AOL to move content beyond its walled garden and into standards-based formats such as HTML and IMAP that any Internet app can access. Supposedly a 'a dramatically different direction' for Netscape is in the works, too."

4 of 296 comments (clear)

  1. Wish AIM were next by cygnusx · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'd love AIM to be opened up, but I'm not holding my breath. Mail is a commodity now, and there is no obvious benefit in walling it up any more. But IM is dominated by the big three: AOL+ICQ, MSN and Yahoo. AOL has too much to lose by letting go, especially since its craptacular IM client is likely to be beaten hands down by Gaim or MSN Messenger.

    1. Re:Wish AIM were next by osewa77 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Locking in your customers to a product, even if it's not in the best interest of those customers, especially when you have the ability to open things up, is at best a short term strategy. As a company, you're trading goodwill for money. To succeed with this strategy, you hope you're in a market where the monetary value of the goodwill you lose doesn't exceed the extra money you get from the lock-in. You hope you don't have a company like Google or Microsoft (in compete mode) that is intent on giving the customer the best deal even if it costs more! Else you have to just open up like AOL just did. At least GMail won't be providing IMAP. my two cents.

  2. AOL Communicator by SpiffyMarc · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If AOL keeps this up, they might actually be taken seriously.

    This seems to go hand-in-hand with the release of their AOL Communicator application... anything to save a sinking ship, I suppose.

    I wonder what the new direction for Netscape is... how many people still trust the Netscape brand enough for them to get any legs out of it?

  3. But who'd use it? by go3 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Too bad that most people who would understand how to setup an IMAP account on Outlook quit AOL years ago.