Future Eudora Based on Thunderbird

theefer writes "Qualcomm announced that future versions of Eudora will be based upon the same technology platform as the open source Mozilla Thunderbird email program. Future versions of Eudora will be free and open source, while retaining Eudora's uniquely rich feature set and productivity enhancements. Qualcomm and Mozilla will each participate in, and continue to foster development communities based around the open source Mozilla project, with a view to enhancing the capabilities and ease of use of both Eudora and Thunderbird. [...] The open source version of Eudora is targeted to release during the first half of calendar year 2007. Once the open source version of Eudora is released, Qualcomm will cease to sell Eudora commercially."

As a long-time Eudora user...

[Dzimas]

I'm saddened by this news. I've used Eudora since the early 1990s, except for one very painful stretch in the early 2000s where it was "strongly suggested" that I use Outlook at work. My favorite feature is the lightning-fast search functionality (which makes me look brilliantly well organized when someone asks about an email conversation from several years ago). I can't say I was fond of the programs ad sponsored option, though. Having your email program pitch the DVD version of Bambi is really annoying.

In the end, the program got really expensive -- maintaining an annual subscription is a slight embarrassment when the accounting department calls me to query the need to "buy another copy of the same program").

My big concern with the new version of the program is that it will prove to be a dead-end fork of Thunderbird code. I'll know for sure the moment I try to search my old mail folders in the upcoming open-source version. If it takes longer than a second, the baby's going out with the bathwater.

Re:An odd thing in Qualcomm's portfolio

[thparker]

Well, you're an idiot then. Outlook Express is a completely different program to Outlook. They don't share a common codebase, they're programmed by different developers.

Wipe the froth from your mouth, boy. In case you hadn't noticed, end users don't give a fuck about the codebase or the developers' names. They're just a couple mail clients from Microsoft, one with more functionality than the other.

And furthermore...

[Tarlus]

If they could do that, and then develop seamless communication with an Exchange server (for both email and the calendar), then I'd throw Outlook out completely. Since everybody in my department is so used to Exchange now, they don't want to break away from it, though most of them agree that Outlook is a pretty scary thing to be dependent on.

Why companies switch out engines

[aafiske]

This is a shame. I've always used Eudora on Windows, and for a long time on Mac. It's generally a useful, reliable program that allows me to customize it to act how I want it to.

I don't predict good things for Eudora from now on. This is not a knock against Thunderbird. It's because often, companies resort to open-source implementations when the remaining engineers can't properly update/maintain the existing codebase. I've seen it happen; either deadlines force your hand, or there's just too much low-level work to get the engine to support the new features you want. It becomes easier just to replace it wholesale and work from a better base.

It's generally an indicator that the expertise has migrated away from the company. Now, a company that _starts_ by using OSS as a base, that can sometimes work. But a big company that has always used it's own engine, 9 times out of 10, moving to open source is a bad sign. (the other 1 time out of ten, it's Apple.)