Thank you for a very entertaining rant. From your simplistic cookbook
arguments, you must be Gen-X.
On Fri, 20 May 2011, Bron Gondwana wrote:
> Thinking... done. Gosh, that was quick. I'm not running a webmail server,
> I'm running a local cache that I want to keep in sync with the server so I
> can run searches and get identical results. I want this to work offline.
You didn't think hard enough, nor did you grasp the point.
> Did I mention 400ms round trips?
I deal with RTTs like that all the time. I've dealt with much higher. I
will spare you the "back in the day" story.
It's your choice to be clouded to the other end of the world over slow
satellite link. Those who live by the cloud, die by the cloud.
> Turns out maybe they DO know what they want, and what they want
> isn't what you're peddling. Maybe different features are important to them
> than the features that are important to you.
I don't produce email clients. Other than a (nicely profitable) hobby, I
don't produce email servers either. What I produce is quite lucrative,
thank you.
I do, however, consume email clients. For my purposes, I want the email
that I use to work well. The current crop of email clients all suck, some
more than others.
Mobile device email clients suck worse of all. It's a pathetic world when
the likes of k9mail on Android - a program whose failings are well-known -
is a recommended solution.
Perhaps you haven't noticed - nobody has formally dropped the term "email"
from their marketing yet - but today's industry is collaboration
(dominated by one player in particular) and messaging. Email is a dying
medium.
Email client usage is rapidly dropping off. Current email clients do not
do what consumers want. As there is no remedy within email, consumers
have turned to other media for communication. Webmail is simply a
disposable means to keep an email address for those few matters that still
require one.
It is, however, fascinating that you produce the "what consumers want"
argument to attack me; webmail has shown that consumers don't particularly
value your desire to work offline.
-- Mark --
http://panda.com/mrc
Democracy is two wolves and a sheep deciding what to eat for lunch.
Liberty is a well-armed sheep contesting the vote.