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Mozilla Opens Thunderbird Email Subsidiary
alphadogg is one of several readers to note the opening of the Mozilla Foundation's new subsidiary, Mozilla Messaging, charged with developing the free, open source Thunderbird email software. Mozilla Messaging will initially focus on Thunderbird 3, which aims at improving several aspects of the software, including integrated calendaring and better search. ZDNet UK's coverage leads with the interest the new organization has in developing instant-messaging software.
I agree that calendars are necessary for corporate deployment. But while you mentioned other stand-alone clients, where are they? I need something that doesn't suck security-wise (*cough* Outlook Express), is supported on multiple platforms (sorry KMail), isn't packaged with a bunch of other stuff I don't need (no thanks, Seamonkey), is full-featured and graphical (I love you pine and mutt, but most users won't deal with a CLI), and doesn't have annoying interface bugs (Thunderbird, you are really on the edge here). First and foremost, I want a program that does email perfectly. A stand-alone client like that currently does not exist. (And don't tell me to go to webmail, I'm not going to put up with waiting several seconds between each email, and I need to be able to read my old mail and compose new mail on an airplane.)
Corporate users should have a "corporate plugin" with all the calendaring and shared address book stuff in there. Have it as an option during install, sure, but if I'm a home user I don't want the clutter of Outlook and I certainly don't want the bloat.