Replace Microsoft Outlook?
January 3, 2007
Offline access is an active topic for web-based products today. I’m curious what all of you think about how to handle offline email. This has some up in a couple of conversations over last few days and Scalix had an interesting post closely related to the topic yesterday. Say you provide web-based email, BlueTie, Zoho, Load.com, Webmail.us. Many say that people would like very much to have a good Outlook alternative but do you think that companies like those mentioned should focus on high quality, very effective integration with Outlook for offline support or look to develop thier own offline client (which may still work within a browser but offline)? We’ve got a great community of industry insiders and enthusiasts here at SaaS-a-fras, it would be great to exchange (pun intended) thoughts on this topic.
January 5, 2007 at 3:25 pm
I think you will see companies creating alternatives to Microsoft Outlook, but you won’t see too many successful ones purposely trying to alienate it. Alternatives are important as some people want to move to the web, and don’t want to run Exchange or OWA, or away from Outlook altogether. And they may need offline access every now and again, but I don’t think Outlook is the solution for users that want offline access ‘every now and again’… just like I don’t think building offline access to webmail is a replacement for users who love Outlook.
Microsoft Outlooks dominates the email client software world and it’s nearly impossible to convince users to move away from that (they really need to decide they want to move away on their own accord). Offline access to a webmail account isn’t going to change that. Most people use Outlook because it’s what they’re used to and frankly most users like it. That is a fact of life. I think that the successful companies will embrace Outlook while creating alternatives as well.
January 6, 2007 at 1:13 pm
Pat, thanks for the comment. You make a good point that for offline support you can’t rely completely on Outlook or other third party application. You’ll need something for those customers who need to go offline but don’t have or want to use a different application. It seems so obvious now that you mention it. I guess I hadn’t thought it through enough.
I know that Zimbra provides offline, anyone know of other mail providers that do? What about other mail/office providers, not documents as much but email, contacts, calendars, like Webmail.US?
Jason this might be a good feature to include availability information about for each product on SaaSBooM.
January 6, 2007 at 6:23 pm
Good idea, I think I’ll implement that. Definitely something that I look for in SaaS apps as well.
January 11, 2007 at 1:59 pm
[...] 5th, 2007 I’m a little discouraged that no one has commented on my question regarding offline clients. We generally get a fair number of comments, perhaps no one wants to give away thier plans? Maybe [...]
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