Back in December, I wrote that I
have been provisionally crossing my fingers and pinning my hopes on an
announcement from Infinity Data Systems that they are working on a real
successor to the Eudora POP3 email client program that will be true to
the Eudora tradition and experience.
Well, it looks like my hopes are about to be requited.
For those of us who want a Eudora successor that's more than just a
Eudora-themed Thunderbird,
Odysseus
cometh.
If you're a Eudora user and fan, you're probably aware that in late
2006 Qualcomm terminated development of the venerable program and
handed of the Eudora name to the Mozilla organization, developers of
the open source Thunderbird email client. Since then, Mozilla's
"Penelope" project has been working on - and periodically releasing -
public betas of a new, open source "Eudora" (version 8) email client
based on the Thunderbird engine.
I've tried to keep a positive and open mind, but I have been pretty
underwhelmed by the Eudora 8 betas, which are essentially Thunderbird
with some Eudora-style appearance themes, icons, and a few feature
tweaks grafted on.
I am a consummate, dyed-in-the-wool, classic Eudora fan, and Mozilla
Thunderbird - or for that matter any three-pane user interface email
client dating back to Claris Emailer - is simply not my cup of tea, so
dressing T-bird up in a Eudora wig and falsies is not going to cut it
for me, or a lot of other Eudora aficionados.
I remain hopeful that the Penelope team at Mozilla will be able to
come up with a reasonably good email client through their labors, which
I in no way disparage, and any "Eudora-ness" that rubs off on
Thunderbird will be to the good.
But so far, Eudora 8 has been, well, a big disappointment, and I've
been provisionally soldiering on with classic Eudora 6.2.4, which IMHO
is about as close to perfection as any Mac POP3 email client has come
thus far, and which works superbly with Mac OS versions up to 10.4.11
"Tiger".
However, with OS X 10.5 Leopard, it's a different kettle of fish.
Qualcomm did release a minor compatibility patch for Leopard, but using
the program day in and day out, performance has become somewhat raggedy
and unstable, and the proverbial writing is on the wall that the end is
in sight for classic Eudora as a practical email program for OS X
users. It can be safely anticipated that a future (perhaps the next)
Mac OS version upgrade will break Eudora (the OS X version of
which is a Carbon port of the old Classic Mac OS Eudora, which dates
back nearly to the dawn of the public Internet) completely, or some new
Web feature will not be supported by the old application.
Consequently an announcement from Infinity Data Systems last week
that version 1.0 of Odysseus - the real Eudora successor true to
the Eudora tradition and experience they've been working on for the
past year or so - will be released on May 12, 2008 is sweet music to
this Eudora-user's ears.
An Infinity Data Systems spokesperson informed me last week that
development of Odysseus has been progressing at a rapid rate, and the
program is currently being tested by a select group of approximately
500 individuals in preparation for a public beta release toward the end
of this month, with a final release in May.
Infinity Data Systems affirms that Eudora has always been a
best-of-breed email application for both dominant platforms, Macs and
Windows, offering features either not found in competing applications
or, if found, not implemented as elegantly. "Like many Eudora users, we
don't believe that modifying Thunderbird to mimic Eudora offers Eudora
users the features, functionality, or experience they've come to love
and depend on. It's our belief that only an application written from
the ground up can adequately succeed a program as great as Eudora."
I couldn't agree more.
IDS says Odysseus will share the same advantages as Eudora, and it
is designed to have the same features, options, and capabilities that
users have come to rely on. Compared to Eudora, Odysseus has the
advantage of being under active development by a software company
claiming dedication to making Odysseus the best email client in
existence. This includes improving on areas where Eudora had started to
lag behind, such as integration with the individual operating systems
that it runs on."
Odysseus is not based on the Eudora code base, since, as the license
holder for that code, Qualcomm was not in a position to simply hand
that code over to anyone else, which is why even Mozilla's
Thunderbird/Eudora 8 effort isn't based on the original code base, but
is instead an attempt to modify a copy of the Thunderbird code base to
mimic Eudora.
On the other hand, IDS says that if there is a particular feature
you like in classic Eudora, it will probably be present in Odysseus
1.1, which will be focused on replicating the Eudora experience that
fans know and love, with more refinement and advanced features to be
added in subsequent versions as development progresses.
Odysseus
will be commercial software (as Qualcomm's Eudora was) and not open
source. It will sell for $39.95, about the same price point as classic
Eudora. The program is being developed with support for Mac OS X
and Windows, with Linux compatibility being looked at for the future.
Version upgrade prices, anticipated roughly annually, are projected to
be $19.95, and if a full version number upgrade occurs in under a
year's time, it will be free for users of the previous version.
The upgrade price is currently available to individuals who would
like to receive a license to Odysseus at a discount price. While the
final application will not be widely available till May 12th, anyone
who pre-registers between April 15th and May 11th will receive a
license (and serial number) to the final version of Odysseus at
approximately half price.
Having faced the dismal realization that there simply isn't an
alternative to Eudora that comes remotely close to being a satisfactory
replacement - according to my criteria of "satisfactory" - it's a
massive understatement to say that I wish Infinity Data Systems a
rip-roaring commercial success with Odysseus, and I'll be waiting
impatiently for that public beta release in a couple of weeks.
