desktop email vs. browser email

Lately I've had clients and friends who've been forced by a "corporate merger" to use slooooooowwwww browser email. One switched to Outlook Express, Microsoft's free desktop email client; another got a faster gMail browser account.

Windows users looking for a "simple yet powerful email client" may find more than relief with Mozilla's free Thunderbird 2 desktop email software. Mozilla is the company that developed the great Firefox browser software. While I've had no problems using Mac Mail 2.1 to read 1 business account, 2 academic accounts, 2 personal accounts, and My.Mac account, I may check out the new version of Thunderbird for Macs. (Yes, email consolidation is on the horizon too....)

Here's an informative piece posted on Slashdot by Zonk earlier today regarding Why Desktop Email Still Trumps Webmail. p3net writes

"Shortly before the release of Thunderbird 2.0 RC1, Wired held an interesting interview with Scott MacGregor, the lead developer of Thunderbird. He presents some views as to why desktop email clients still triumph, even in this much-dominated web age. 'Some users want to have their data local for privacy and control. Furthermore, you can integrate data from different applications on the desktop in ways that you can't do with web-based solutions, unless you stick to web solutions from a single provider. For example, you can use your Outlook address book with Thunderbird. We'd like to continue to expand the kinds of data you can share between Thunderbird and other apps (both web and desktop applications).'"

• Read more: Mozilla: Why Desktop Email Crucifies the Browser by Scott Gilberston, Wired, 04.09.07.
  
• Mozilla website for Firefox (web browser) and Thunderbird email client. At this point, you have to decide whether you want the stable Thunderbird 1.5 or a Thunderbird 2 Release Candidate.
• Original Slashdot article (above) - Why Desktop Email Still Trumps Webmail