Web-Based Email Comparison

IT/Redux has an updated summary of it’s Office 2.0 Roundup with a review of 10 online email applications. The review focused on services that have been registered in their database, Yahoo! Mail, Hotmail, Gmail, FastMail, Jubii, Zimbra, Webmail.us, WebExMail, Mailroom, Tamadaa. As they noted there are a lot of email players so narrowing the field to a reasonable number to review is tough although I would have probably replaced a couple on the list with established players Load.com and BlueTie.  

I’m a big fan of the IT/Redux site, the only thing that I believe the Office 2.0 Roundup leaves to be desired is a perspective of application suites. Some of the tools listed encapsulate multiple functions and while they may not be the best at each individual function there is something to be said about their ability to integrate functions together and provide efficiency.

Immitation is the Sincerest form of Flattery

As you know they say, Immitation is the Sincerest form of Flattery. BlueTie has offered Free and Pro versions since October and there are some very key similarities, judge for yourself:

Google: http://www.google.com/a/help/intl/en/admins/editions.html

 BlueTie: http://www.bluetie.com/smb_content/products/products.php

BlueTie Adds 15,000 Small Businesses in 90 Days

BlueTie has added more than 15,000 new small businesses to its’ customer base in the first 90 days of launching it’s free version. The free version, as we’ve noted before, will be monetized via Featuretisements which are tightly integrated, relevant services for small business owners and employees. It’s a level of integration that hasn’t been seen before and it is going to be the monetization model for the future for many SaaS offerings. The days of trying to monetize web-based software by just putting in banner ads are numbered.

If a tree falls in the forest….

I think we’ve had some interesting posts in the last couple weeks and our visits remain consistent but everyone’s been very quiet on the comments. It’s Q1 and everyone’s probably very busy. Here’s a quick list of the most interesting in case you haven’t had time to read through. Click through to a couple and let us know what you think.

 Why ‘Free-mail’ has a bad reputation

“…And finally, here’s the one I don’t understand: 

“But the real sticking point may be whether you want to trust your most important messages to any free service at all.”

I don’t know what this means. Why wouldn’t I want to trust my messages to a free service? What is the opposite of a ‘free service’ and why should I ‘trust’ them?”

Online Office Suite Review and Comparison

“…For those of you who are watching the online office suite marketplace, it also notes that Google and ThinkFree may be in negotiations. Do you think it will happen?”

Microsoft and Online Office Update

“…It’s a nice SWOT analysis of Microsoft’s strengths and weaknesses, opportunities and threats. It ends with a list of options for Microsoft which I’ve placed into this handy Zoho poll. What do you think?”

Monetizing Web 2.0 - Solved

“…The model that BlueTie is building is beyond ‘Free-mium’, it’s the monetization model of the future. How long before Goolge replaces those ads in Gmail with integrated services like this?”

BlueTie Product To Watch by Small Business Technology

BlueTie was chosen as a Product To Watch by Small Business Technology Magazine.

Monetizing Web 2.0 - Solved

This is a very good interview with David Koretz from BlueTie about Monetizing Web 2.0. The model that BlueTie is building is beyond ‘Free-mium’, it’s the monetization model of the future. How long before Goolge replaces those ads in Gmail with integrated services like this?

Why ‘Free-mail’ Has a Bad Reputation

Hey everyone, sorry about the little hiatus, I was on vacation (still am) and despite best intentions did not spend any time posting over the last week or so. I suppose that’s a good thing.

I do now want to write about an article on the Washington Post site regarding Web-mail. The gist of the article is that Google is the best of the ‘Free-mail’ options compared to Yahoo and Hotmail. The article ends with three points:

“But what if you plan to employ a Web-mail account as your primary e-mail address? That can be a complicated value judgment. Gmail’s ads are generally in good taste, but do you want every bit of personal correspondence to arrive with its own marketing payload?”

Is Google forgoing potential business customers by continuing to display ads in the email client? Could they possibly be making money with these ads? Until just now, when I went to look specifically, I had never even looked at the ads. I knew they were they but never looked at them and never even considered looking at them. I’m there do get things done, read my mail, respond, are these ads really adding revenue at the expense of users?

“There’s also the nagging issue of Gmail’s developers not considering the service “done” after 33 months of effort — thought it may be comforting to learn that Google employees themselves use Gmail.”

Can we stop exploiting the word ‘Beta’ now? Look 33 months, millions of people use it every day and anyone can get access and use it, it’s not in Beta anymore. Beta use to be cool, now it’s just a gimmick. Google’s not the only one diluting the definition of Beta, of course. Now we are going to have to have different levels of Beta, ‘Limited Beta’ (which means it really is in Beta and not just anyone can use it), ‘Beta’ (the company is trying to be cool), ‘Perpetual Beta’ (the company has no idea how to monetize the product and needs to keep the investors on the line).

And finally, here’s the one I don’t understand: 

“But the real sticking point may be whether you want to trust your most important messages to any free service at all.”

I don’t know what this means. Why wouldn’t I want to trust my messages to a free service? What is the opposite of a ‘free service’ and why should I ‘trust’ them?

Replace Microsoft Outlook?

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.

Open-Source vs. SAAS

An interesting post by Mark Suster at Koral doing a little bit of a compare/contrast of Open-Source vs. SAAS. I found it interesting since some companies are SAAS (BlueTie, Zoho) and others are Open-Source (Zimbra, Scalix). 

I wonder if it doesn’t come down to the level of technical sophistication that will make one or the other more attactive to an enterprise. For example, would a small business owner of say an office of 5 to 10 people ever think about getting something they have to install or configure on a server like Zimbra for example? Surely they would go with something more ‘turn-key’ like BlueTie for email and calendar and ThinkFree or Zoho for documents.

So maybe it comes down to enterprise size, open-source for larger enterprises that have their own IT staff and SAAS for smaller enterprises or those larger enterprises that are trying to save IT staff costs.

It would be good to include a classificiation of target company size in that product chart I mentioned before.

Web-Based Apps vs. Microsoft

There was a very good article summarizing the Web-Based Apps vs. Microsoft discussion by Cynthia Harvey over at Datamation entitled: Free Web-Based Office Productivity Apps. The sub heads within the article pretty much sum up the discussion to date:

Let’s Share

Wherever You Go, There It Is

Whose Server Do You Trust?

Free!

Show Me The Features

Just A Bit Quirky

Will The Empire Strike Back?

Again, a very good summary. I think it will be great to do a summary of progress in each of these areas say in 6 months and then again in a year to see what changes have occured and progress made.