Mozilla Thunderbird 3.0: New calendar, better search

A new Mozilla Foundation effort to improve its Thunderbird open-source e-mail software now has an official name--and its first public goals.

Thunderbird 3.0 is due to ship by the end of the year with a more comprehensive search feature and official integration of the Lightning calendar add-on, said David Ascher, chief executive of the newly named Mozilla Messaging subsidiary. The first alpha release will come sooner, though, for those who want to test the software.

"I'm expecting we'll have some public releases probably within three months," Ascher said.

Mozilla is best known for its success with the Firefox browser, which has dented Microsoft Internet Explorer's dominance and sparked programmers to build a rich selection of extensions. Now the group is trying to apply the formula to e-mail software. Even though many rely on Web-based services for the chore, e-mail software is still widely used, and Thunderbird could open another major beachhead for open-source software in mainstream computing.

Although Mozilla Messaging's priority is to produce good software, not specifically to dethrone Microsoft's dominant Outlook software, the new calendar ability makes Thunderbird a more viable competitor, particularly in corporate environments.

Adding a third Mozilla group can be confusing, so let me spell out the distinctions for those of you who haven't scrutinized every development in the last 10 years since Netscape and its acquirer, AOL, spun off the Mozilla project in 1998. The Mozilla Foundation, a not-for-profit group, is in charge overall; for-profit subsidiaries Mozilla Corp. and Mozilla Messaging run the Web browser and e-mail projects, respectively.

Mozilla Messaging also has named a three-person board of directors: Ascher; Chris Beard, general manager of Mozilla Labs; and Marten Mickos, CEO of MySQL, the open-source database company Sun Microsystems has just agreed to acquire for about $1 billion. More are likely to be added later as the organization grows, Ascher said.

The organization has only five or six employees, he said, but others contribute, too, including Mozilla Corp.'s Firefox engineers, Sun's employees working full-time on Lightning, and Qualcomm programmers moving their Eudora software to a Thunderbird base. "You quickly get to dozens of developers and hundreds of testers," he said.

Messaging beyond e-mail
Mozilla Messaging isn't just about e-mail. The new name reflects some of the subsidiary's ambitions.

Thunderbird already can handle RSS feeds and newsgroups, but ultimately, Ascher wants Mozilla Messaging's software to work with instant messaging, mobile phone text messaging, and Web sites such as Facebook or Flickr that have their own e-mail systems.

Although many of those sites don't open up their internal e-mail systems, at least at present, tightly integrating over the Web could sidestep that barrier. "Because we're built on the same platform as Firefox, we can use Web sites quite easily," Ascher said.

Ascher hopes the new Thunderbird will begin paving the way for such possibilities, in part by enabling a wide range of experimentation.

"There's a lot of engineering work that may not show its face in 3.0 but that will make it possible for other people to build extensions that plug into Thunderbird 3," Ascher said.

Another fruitful avenue for experimentation is spam filtering and antiphishing security, he added. Firefox has a blacklist security feature that attempts to protect people from phishing e-mails that try to trick recipients into entering passwords or other sensitive information into bogus Web sites. "It's possible to leverage technology in Firefox 3 to detect phishing and incorporate it into Thunderbird," Ascher said.

For instant messaging software, Ascher is looking at XMPP, the Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol used by Jabber and Google Talk. "That kind of technology might make its way into Thunderbird someday," he said.

Improving search--but not with ads
Nearer-term priorities, though, are improving Thunderbird 2.0's search, adding calendar abilities, and making Thunderbird easier to use, Ascher said.

"What we're trying to do with Thunderbird 3 is make a better, more integrated search experience--search that spans e-mail, calendar, address books (and) maybe someday IM conversations," he said.

Integrating search has proved lucrative: Google paid Mozilla $66.8 million in 2006 for making Google the default home page and search-box option. But adding that sort of search to e-mail isn't on the Thunderbird to-do list.

"When people search (e-mail), they tend to be searching for information, not for things to buy. It's not a great environment to be throwing ads in front of people," Ascher said.

Revenue, in fact, isn't even on the current worry list.

"I'm deferring the revenue model issues for a while," Ascher said. The first priority will be to produce good software. "The model used for Firefox was not to generate something that would generate revenue, it was to create the best browser possible. I'm following that recipe again."

[My-Self]

Thunderbird + Firefox

Looks like they're trying to integrate more Firefox features into Thunderbird unless it's the other way around. Why not push the logic to it's end, throw a web composer for good measure and ... celebrate the rebirth of Mozilla all in one suite !
And please,don't call it 'seamonkey 3' !

[bluemist9999]

Looking forward to Thunderbird 3

I already use Thunderbird 2.0 as my email client and have had good luck with it. It just works and is simple and elegant.

I'm looking forward to see what they can do with Thunderbird 3.0. I'd love to see Thunderbird make inroads in corporate environments.

[ccwsoftware]

Lightning? Please.

Sorry, but the last time I looked, Lightning was crap. If the MozFolk expect this to fly, the Sun people that are (allegedly) working on Lightning better be a high-end crew. For home use, I dislike Outlook, and I'm not really a MS fanboi -- but Mozilla has absolutely nothing to offer that even approaches it. Sunbird and Lightning are both crap, in comparison.

[247mark]

Already there

Spicebird is already working on an Outlook killer. Still in the beta stage but pretty impressive nonetheless.

Mark

[frankwick]

Windows Live Mail

For work I use Outlook 2007. No choice.

For personal email, I have been through them all. I dumped Outlook Express and went through many other clients. Thunderbird competed with most and I stuck with it for a couple of years. However, it now feels old, the junk mail controls (which I once thought were top of the line) are now average. My latest pop client is Windows Live Mail (this is a separate download and not Windows Mail which is included with Vista). This is a superb email client (for a 1.0) release with multi-account functions, news, rss, etc... The junkmail controls in WLM are as good as those as the full-blown Outlook 2007. There are a ton of new user-centric features as well like photo-mail.

Whatever the Mozilla guys decide on, it needs to complete with the newest mail client from MS.

[sourceview]

Transparent Encryption

As a small businessperson, I would like to see the thunderbird client be more business oriented, and this means setting up a transparent asymmetrical encryption process, whereby my company servers, using qmail or postfix IMAP can separate messages from my associates who have posted a public keyphrase in my computer, or is recognized by my server as a bonafide intraweb user. Thus, my postgresql database, along with dbmail could archive only those messages which are pertinent to the business, and spam is easily shunted aside according to company policy. This would eliminate spam, tighten up the rules on what must be archived for the Feds and under the new evidence rules. Facebook type sites could include the public key for friends, etc., and if the incoming email is from that source, the client would have the ability to accept or reject the message. Result: no one reads my messages unless I specifically allow it, and no spam.

[Kasiola2003]

Thunderbird and Calendar

I would love a calendar with Thunderbird. The calendar feature is still the only reason I still use Microsoft Office. Even more important than the word, excel ppt.I can get that with open office. Just goes to show, You can outfit a computer with all free software eventually.

[smlinde]

Am I the only one...

...that doesn't want a outlook look alike?!

The only real complaint I had with the current version of Thunderbird was the address book would not move records... I would have to copy, confirm, then go back and delete, which was a pain. However, I've recently noticed that when I drag and drop the record moves, so one of the recent updates must have finally fixed that glitch.

<rant>
I don't want Outlook or anything that pretends to be like it. I won't use Evolution on a Linux box for the same reason. I don't want (or need) IMAP and I don't want Outlook (by any other name)... reading the comments here I guess I'm in the minority. It's really sad that folks can't break the m$ habit. Next thing you know someone is going to insist that activex and other assorted bad stuff be automatic with Thunderbird, just like Outlook.

I just want a fast, reliable email client. Having one that can also handle newsgroups (which Thunderbird does reasonably well) is a bonus. But then newsgroups have a lot in common with email, just the distribution method is different.

All the other, non-email crap, is just a pain and a waste. Mind you, I still insist on viewing email as plain text. I refuse html or images in my email and only create plain text messages. So I am so far out of the main stream today I don't expect anyone to agree with me. On the other hand you'll never get any nasty stuff onto my system via email...
</rant>

[ikaruga2099]

Dethrone outlook? Not yet

"The new calendar ability makes Thunderbird a more viable competitor, particularly in corporate environments."

Not really. Most corporate environments are running Microsoft Access. Poor access support is what's holding me back from switching completely to Linux.

[BobNZ]

i aree with frankwick about windows live mail i stopped using outlook and thunderbird as i couldnt find a way to get my hotmail downloaded through it and windows live mail does that for me. this could be a great feature to be added to thunderbird if it isnt already