Incorporate calendars and schedulers all you want, but until you can connect to an exchange server, I, or none of the PC's I manage, can use Tbird.

Buggy

I connect to Exchange 5.5, 2000, and 2003 just fine with Thunderbird as an IMAP/LDAP client. Of course, you could also use TB as a POP3 client with Exchange 2000/2003 but IMAP is well suited for server-side mailbox stores like Exchange. Folders (including Public Folders) are fully supported by IMAP, and you can access the Global Address List using LDAP. With 2000/2003, you have to know how to configure the Directory Service account in TB so that it authenticates with domain credentials and queries a Active Directory Global Catalog server. That's really the obstacle: ease of use. Configuring Outlook for a wide range of mail account types is a piece of cake; configuring TB for anything other than POP3 is black magic.

So people actually continue to use pop-based email? Email has now become a consistently unreliable communication medium — SPAM WON, folks. But someone please build a better app than Outlook, and not just another pretender like Barca. The only emails I use are the best kind — fake ones.

Um.....what would you suggest? Some junk web based mail like Yahoo or Gmail? Yeah....that's what I want, some unsecure webmail with advertisements and spam.

Let's see: Firefox 1.0 was released in 2004 after being forked from the Mozilla code which was started in 1998. Thunderbird took less than 2 years to reach 1.0 but of course TB isn't really 1.0 quality yet; they merely wanted to sync with FF's version. Now we've got Lightning 0.1 "planned" for mid-2005, which probably puts the first truly usable version in the 2007-2008 timeframe. In the meantime, Microsoft (and all other vendors of calendering and scheduling solutions) will lay down and take a nap?

It will be at least a year before Lightning's prospects for success can be determined. I see no reason in this vaporware announcement for people to get excited, except that some seem to believe ANYTHING associated with Firefox will be a hit.

There are a lot of things I hate about Outlook, but Lightning is far from being the first assault on Outlook, and nobody has ever made a dent. Evolution was one of the most credible attempts (at least on the Linux platform; too bad it wasn't cross-platform) but I guess it's not enough that Evolution is non-Microsoft. The angry mob demands free and Open Source, too.

P.S. Flamers, please don't bother telling me how well TB 1.0 works on your simple POP3 accounts and local address books. Come back to me when you can configure an IMAP trash folder without manually editing the prefs.js file, or when the UI for multiple LDAP address books is finished and supports common LDAP providers more cleanly. TB 1.0 may be good enough for grandma, but don't pretend that it's competitive with mature products for serious users.

Microsoft WON'T lie down and take a nap? Isn't that what they HAVE been doing... with everything? Is that not what happened with Internet Explorer versus Firefox? Is that not the same situation all over again? I say let's see the software first, and then decide what will and will not be an effective blow to Microsoft's Outlook.

No, IE gained 18 new features in XPSP2 and WS03SP1. In addition to the cumulative security patches which were already being publicly released for Outlook Express, Microsoft recently (December 13) posted public rollups of the non-security fixes for OE which previously required a (free) phone call to obtain. These rollups were even made available for Windows 98SE and Windows NT 4.0 Workstation, which are well past their support expiration.

Of course, Outlook Express is not the target of Lightning because OE doesn't have calendaring like the full Outlook, which has been steadily upgraded without any pause. In fact, most whiners feel that Outlook and Office gets upgraded TOO often, and there are widespread reports of organizations still running Outlook 2000 who have never been able/willing to spend the time to evaluate ANY alternative from ANY vendor...not even Microsoft's own Outlook 2002 and 2003.

Outlook is not going away, no matter how anyone hashes the Bill Gates world. However, having an alternative to machines targeted for spam is a great idea. And using Mozilla's Firefox and Thunderbird works fairly well. However, having IE as part of the operating kernel leaves a back door to the machines anyway. If you use Outlook, get a software solution like EZ Armor (or Zonealarm) which has the mailsafe pieces encorporated. Or even use the Junkmail function in Outlook. And for those ugly spyware ads showing up, use EZ Pestpatrol.
Without using another operating kernel such as Linux (whatever flavor), we are still pluging the hole in the dike with our pinky.

Tired of MS having the upper hand in everything. We need some MAJOR competition. Go Mozilla!

i say hell yea to that one!

Hello folks !

I agree what Firefox 1.0 is one of the best browser and Internet Explorer is nummer 1 in use only because 40% of people is being under a spell of mind control of Bill Cates and the Microsoft team with the new WindowsXP Service Pack 2 and rest 50% don`t no anything about the PC they are useing other when check where email and and surf a littel bit because like most of the 40% what no something they are still useing a 56kbit dial up modem.

What was that...the English in that post was so erratic I fail to understand what you are trying to say.

At the very least, Microsoft might react to the nonexistant threat of people migrating to Lightning Bug by accelerating improvement to Outlook and lowering its licensing fees. And if the Mozilla Foundation wants to contribute free ideas to Microsoft to accomplish this end so be it (There's no accounting for the Linux religion).

Instead of churning out half-baked replicas of MS products, perhaps the OSS community could come up with a... viable business model? You know: something that would draw on a pool of developers bigger than high school hackers and fifty-year-olds who still live in their moms' basements. And frankly only the latter have the patience to deal with, without pay, all the minutae to keep Enterprise software humming.

I agree, Go FF and TB!

I use FF 1.0 and TB 1.0, and will keep using them far into the future, also noted I have been using them for over 1 year now and have NEVER had a complaint about them (not even RC or Beta releases).

GeorgeSantayana said it all... No free LIC software can keep up with any pay. come on Linux is still in the late 80's and that is the most used of them all.OE/MS have nothing to worry about! MS costs a lot because it works and if it doesn't you have someone to call and help you. With you free crap if it doesn't work who are you going to call? Even if you do get someone they will be like "Oh you will have to wait until the next version is released for support on that", There is now support on something unless you pay for it and they even give you massive free support via the web.