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Client Software
This is the software that runs on your PC to send and receive email.
Entourage
Microsoft’s email client for the Macintosh includes a lot of extra capabilities and described as a PIM tool (Personal Information management). Interfaces fully with MS Exchange server allowing cooperative working.
Eudora
Originally written for the Macintosh, Eudora is quite a vintage client program that has gone through many versions (now v8.0) and has a loyal following from both IBM and Macintosh users. There is a free version and charged for versions with extra features
LINK: www.eudora.com
Microsoft Outlook and Outlook Express
Outlook is Microsoft’s offering in the client email market and is now shipping Outlook 2007. It adds features such as shared calendars and is part of MS’s collaborative enterprise strategy. Needless to say it interfaces particularly well with MS Exchange, their server software. Outlook Express is the reduced features program provided free of charge and normally included with Internet Explorer and as a bundle with Microsoft Office. It is available for Mac also.
LINK: www.microsoft.com
Pegasus
A venerable freeware email client for Windows dating all the way back to 1989 but with its latest version released in December 2005 so still keeping people happy.
LINK: www.pmail.com
PINE
This program was developed at the University of Washington and is a popular UNIX client also available in Windows versions.
LINK: www.washington.edu
Poco Mail
Available first in 1998 Poco mail is a commercial email program that claims to reduce SPAM and viruses by using it own HTML and script removing vulnerabilities aimed at the Microsoft software used by other mail clients. With Barca they company has added a productivity tool for shared calendars etc and aims to compete with Microsoft Outlook. Has won many awards.
LINK: www.pocosystems.com
Thunderbird
This is the email client from the Mozilla foundation and has been attracting a lot of attention because of the range of features it offers including in built SPAM filtering. It is available in Windows, Macintosh and Linux versions
Link: www.mozilla.com
Server Software
This is the software that provides the email service to users of the Internet. Internet email is a “store and forward” service. Using the SMTP protocol email messages are sent from their source computer (ie a PC running a client program – see above – or from a server which is being accessed directly by webmail) to the mail server that handles messages for a given domain. It is then processed and stored there in a “mailbox” awaiting access by the user. With POP3 email the client normally downloads the message onto the PC whilst with webmail the message normally resides on the server. The process used to be one of checking mail to see if any new mail has come in. However with “push” email the server is able to send out email to the client as soon as received at the server. This is possible with the latest version of Microsoft Exchange Server and UNIX based systems such as Zimbra and is something that RIM has been offering with their Blackberry mobile client device.
Mailenable
A mail server for Windows from an Australian company and claiming customers around the world
Link: www.mailenable.com
Merak
Supporting both Windows and LINUX Merak from Icewarp claims market share from corporates up to ISPs for its mail server software with built-in antispam and antivirus capabilities.
Link: www.icewarp.com
Microsoft Exchange
The market leader in the server market especially since the release of Exchange Server 2003 added many extra features including now push email to compete with the Blackberry product. Exchange 2007 has now been released but deployment is currently slow but expected to grow rapidly once the first service pack is released. It changes the way you use email because it stores all the inbox and outbox, even attachments—so if you access your email from a web browser or remote device you can get at the same things as you can when working at your PC. Collaboration features increase productivity for workgroups such as shared calendars and project folders.
Link: www.microsoft.com
Scalix
Another company taking on Microsoft in the email server market. This LINUX product is a serious competitor for MS Exchange.
Link: www.scalix.com
Sendmail
Sendmail is one of the original mailserver programs and runs on UNIX platforms. Nowadays the mail server itself is open source but with a wide range of commercial and non commercial addons.
Links:www.sendmail.com
www.sendmail.org
Zimbra
Considered by some to be the best competitive product to MS Exchange that has recently emerged. Offers many of the same features and claims others will be added shortly to this Open Source UNIX based product. Claims that its AJAX based webmail system is superior to Microsoft's OWA. To compete with MS Outlook they have now released a client version.
Link: www.zimbra.com
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