RSSAOL Opens E-Mail Access to Third Party Clients
By Nate Mook and David Worthington | Published December 5, 2003, 4:45 AM
Subscribers of America Online may soon be free to choose their own preferred e-mail client, continuing a recent move by the company away from a single integrated client.
AOL is expanding an earlier beta test of a standalone dialer to include the capacity to use rich third party software to check member e-mail. The dialer is expected to ship as part of the forthcoming Tahiti upgrade to the AOL client, which is scheduled to ship early next year.
In the past, AOL's rudimentary e-mail support epitomized a longstanding gripe of its subscribers: not having access to a decent mail client to manage their accounts.
While recent client updates have attempted to prop up the viability of AOL Mail, a post-merger Time Warner publicly acknowledged that it was dumping the client for internal use due to its lackluster performance. Given the choice, AOL subscribers can now do the same without abandoning the service outright.
As a result of AOL's shift in tactics, a plethora of commercial and freeware e-mail applications are now supported by the client - so long as they employ SMTP for sending mail and IMAP4 for reading mail. AOL offhandedly lists compatibility with Microsoft Outlook and Outlook Express and Qualcomm's Eudora. Clients that are POP3 exclusive will not work with the new capability, dubbed Open Mail Access.
Open Mail Access becomes one of many recent efforts by AOL to give subscribers more flexibility, as the company attempts to fend off broadband rivals leeching off its customer base.
Last month, AOL enabled concurrent logins for its instant messaging network, a feature that is designed to allow members to use the independent AIM client. AOL in August released AOL Communicator, a standalone application for e-mail and instant messaging targeted at broadband users.
"Back in July, Microsoft announced the Outlook Connector for MSN, which would let people synchronize MSN e-mail, calendars and contacts to Outlook. The AOL Dialer would appear to be in part a response to that, but focused on Outlook Express," Joe Wilcox, senior analyst at Jupiter Research, told BetaNews. "Considering OE ships with Windows, most consumers have this e-mail client available to them. Many less would have Outlook."
The Outlook Connector entered beta testing on Tuesday.
No specific timetable has been set for the inclusion of Open Mail Access into AOL's primary offerings.
Earlier this week, AOL released an updated version of the Tahiti code to its testers. The upgrade branched out from the client to include anti-spyware technology meant to protect customers' Internet experience. The service provider also issued a "light" version of Tahiti aimed at providing a comparably rich client to subscribers with older PCs, while not skimping on the security features introduced in AOL 9 Optimized.
In an endeavor complimentary to the light edition of its client software, AOL also announced that it will providing low-cost PCs to subscribers in exchange for a $300 USD and a year of customer loyalty. The PC, dubbed "AOL Optimized" is being built by Systemax. AOL has launched a Web site to promote its belt-tightening offer.
"AOL's margins are typically higher for dial-up than broadband, so the low-cost PC is a way of wooing would-be dial-up customers," explained Jupiter's Wilcox.
AOL members interested in participating in the Open Mail Access beta can visit Keyword: "beta" and click the link labeled "Open Mail Access."
AOL needs to realize that their newsreader is even more outdated than their e-mail package. I'm sick of trying to explain to AOL newsgroup users why they can't download 90% of the files they see posted.
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|Due to AOL not allowing outlook back then, they forced a bunch of newbies from using it. And we all know how those outlook security flaws went. In other words, they basically kept another potential 20 million worm carriers away. (how ironic)
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|For every outlook worm there is 3 AOL Password trojans and 3 to 4 AOL browser hijackers. Touché!
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|you're kidding right ? No wonder why Outlook Express worms dominate the AV charts. No wonder I've received dozens of Virii files via my pop3 account and none through my AOL account. Has to be because there's more AOL worms.
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|you both know nothing about what trojans are passed around aol so how would you know what email IS a trojan? encryption easily gets passed aols little virus scan its not hard at all cmon think KIDS!
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|1st. Who says I use AOL's AV solution .
2nd. I usually check all AOL email for attachments when I open AOL mail. and no I don't count social engineering attempts like the InstaKiss, AOL billing scam .. etc as virii/trojans.
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|They could have done this years ago if they had wanted to. But AOL has always preferred to saddle users with second-rate proprietary software so as to keep their monopoly.
CompuServe2000, which uses the same phone nodes and software engine as AOL, has since its earliest days had the option to use IMAP to retrieve your mail with another client such as Outlook or Outlook express. AOL could have done the same thing years ago, or could do it tomorrow, if they chose to.
I view this as a sign of weakness. They are bleeding members and no longer enjoy the near monopoly position that they had over their competitors in the email and instant messaging business.
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|Not to defend AOL , but your attitude speaks volumes of your ignornace. You think that it couldn't possibly be for any other reason that they don't. Think of the 1st alternative they would have had to support , namely Outlook Express. I'd prefer any of the new AOL client's email ( say from about 6.0 on ) to Outlook Express.
You talk like you know a lot more about what AOL should and should not support than they do. I can assure you you don't.
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|You speak whereof you know not what.
When CompuServe2000 opened its mail to IMAP access, it meant that you can use ANY email client to pick up your mail. You just have to configure an account. I mentioned Outlook Express as an example because many people use it. If you prefer some other mail client, such as Eudora or whatever, you can use that. ANY email client.
AOL had the technology already in place to do this years ago. They refrained, because they didn't want to allow anyone to use any other email client to access their mail, for fear of losing a piece of their monopoly.
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|Heh . How is allowing someone to choose an email client going to chnage a monopoly? If people stayed on AOL , they'd still be paying AOL regardless of which client they use.
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|oh and while we are on subject COmpuserve and AOL have differing target markets, which may explain why in CS2000 it was available and in AOL it wasn't. In case you didn't know Compuserve 2000 IS AOL software and the IMAP situation could work for AOL , with some tweaks.
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|While we are on the subject, this is what I said in the first place.
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|erm what I mean is that it was actually done on AOL ( I tried it once and it worked ). It's just the CS2000 Imap hack was published and supported by AOL/CS , the AOL solution wasn't, with good bloody reason
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|Took that long to AOL to realize MSN 9.0 had a much more opened email client than before ???
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|Allowing Outlook to access Hotmail is like putting regular gas into a Ferrari.
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|what makes you think MSN is better than AOL in terms of email availability? MSN doesn't even use an open email standard like AOL's IMAP, to get your MSN email you can only either use Outlook / Outlook Express, Webmail or MSN, no mobile support no 3rd party client support, now THAT's what I call monopoly.
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|fwiw: a ferrari will run just fine regular gas. Nothing special required with their engine/ignition combination.
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|This isn't really "new" news. This service has been available through AOL Germany for over two years(don't know about AOL USA, but I wouldn't be surprised).
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