13 Apr E-mail software needs a rewrite
It looks like a great time for e-mail but a lousy time for e-mail applications. If, that is, you even use a separate e-mail program these days.
Web-based mail has been gaining ground for years, especially since Google revived the concept by launching Gmail five years ago.
These days, many home users never bother to download their e-mail, and the only threat Web mail sites face comes from other sites: the closed confines of social networks. The most popular among them, Facebook, just gained its 200 millionth member, far more than any one Web-mail service.
Plenty of other desktop programs have been made deservedly obsolete by Web equivalents: Who gets teary-eyed with nostalgia over encyclopedia CD-ROMs? But in the case of e-mail, it’s not so clear that the Web deserves a victory.
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