Re:The real story (Score 1)

So basically, Mozilla is telling Thunderbird people, "go find your own sugar daddy, we're not sharing ours." All this talk of a new messaging platform is obviously a way of attracting funding. But I'm not optimistic that it will be forthcoming.

So why doesn't Google work on a GMail skin/plugin for Thunderbird that emulates a limited feature set for offline use? POP3 is just for downloading the mail into Thunderbird. If people love the GMail so much, wouldn't they want a version of the experience off-line?
I can't believe Google wouldn't consider this. GMail doesn't work when your on a 4 hour flight and need to work on some correspondence or plan out your calendar. They're conceding this to Microsoft office? Wow, until now I've given too much credit to the Google for being proactive with competitive strategies.