USING THUNDERBIRD
FOR BUSINESS EMAIL
Table of Contents
Introduction...3 The key benefits of Thunderbird...3 Zero cost...3 No license fees or restrictions...3 Professional grade, industrial strength...3 Truly crossplatform...3 Full offline email access...3 Calendaring and todo list support...4 Handles ginormous amounts of email...4 Handles ginormous attachments...4 Handles multiple simultaneous email accounts...5 A rich addon ecosystem...5 Tabbed messaging...5 RSS feed reader functionality builtin...6 Rich theming options...6 Plays nicely with Gmail...6 Integrated instant messaging and social network support...6 Open source, open standards...7 Conclusion...8 For more information...8Introduction
Email is a fundamental part of business communication, and the email application you choose to standardise on can profoundly effect productivity, interoperability, and cost savings. In this whitepaper we are going to look at Mozilla Thunderbird, a free and open source email client application that offers a number of compelling advantages over competing proprietary email applications,such as Microsoft Outlook, Google Gmail, and Apple Mail.The key benefits of Thunderbird
Zero cost
There is no upfront license cost to use Thunderbird.No license fees or restrictions
You can download and use the software on as many computers as you like without restriction. Contrast this with Microsoft Outlook, which is bundled only with the Microsoft Office suite, and comes loaded with highly restrictive and potentially costly licensing terms.Professional grade, industrial strength
Thunderbird is a professional, businessgrade email application. It's designed from the ground up with a feature set which helps you make the most efficient use of email as a business communication medium. By comparison, consumer applications like Windows Live Mail and Apple Mail are designed to suit light email workloads. Designed for the home user, using these in a busy commercial environment can lead to frustration with a user interface and feature set not optimised for business use.Truly crossplatform
Thunderbird is completely supported on all the major desktop operating systems, with a complete set of features and full functionality. This includes Microsoft Windows, Apple OS X, and Ubuntu. Compare this with Apple Mail, which is only compatible with OS X. Or with Microsoft Outlook, which is only available as a fullfeatured product for Windows, with missing features and functionality on the OS X version. With Thunderbird, you can expect the same user interface and outstanding feature set regardless of what computer operating system you use.Full offline email access
Cloud email service providers such as Google advertise the benefits of a webbased emailfolders including your Inbox and Sent email items can still be viewed and managed. This is critical for maintaining business continuity in the case of unavoidable network disruption.
Calendaring and todo list support
Thunderbird features excellent calendaring and task list support. Calendars and task lists can either stand alone, or be seamlessly integrated with a Gmail account.Handles ginormous amounts of email
As an email application designed for business use, Thunderbird is capable of managing tens of thousands of email items and several gigabytes of messaging data all without breaking a sweat.Handles ginormous attachments
Using the Thunderbird Filelink feature, you can send massive attachments over email with support for thirdparty cloud storage services like Dropbox. For example, when attaching a large file to an email, Thunderbird will automatically and securely upload the file in the background to Dropbox. A secure link to the file is then automatically inserted in the body of your email, which the recipient simply clicks on to download the file. This is an unbeatable feature for businesses where the emailing of large files (such as PDF building plans or highresolution images) is a regular activity and Thunderbird makes it as easy as sending any other email. Figure 1 Calendaring and task list support in Thunderbird.Handles multiple simultaneous email accounts
Do you have multiple email accounts for work and personal use, but wish to access them from the same central point? Simply add them as additional accounts, and Thunderbird will manage them effortlessly. Each account is treated independently with its own settings, so you can, for example, have a different email signature for each email address, or different schedules for how frequently email is retrieved.A rich addon ecosystem
One of the key advantages of Thunderbird over other email applications is the availability of hundreds of free addons that extend the functionality of Thunderbird in several useful ways.1 From enabling quick access to email folders to automatically removing duplicate messages, there is an addon for every kind of email user.Tabbed messaging
If you have ever tried to manage a large number of messages simultaneously with an email application like Microsoft Outlook, you will know how frustrating it is to deal with several separate windows, each containing one email item. Thunderbird has the option of opening new messages in tabs identical to how modern web browsers like Firefox work. Tabbed messaging is an ideal way to make the most of limited screen space and keep window clutter to an absolute minimum. In addition, Figure 2 Dropbox cloud integration in Thunderbird.RSS feed reader functionality builtin
With RSS support builtin to Thunderbird, you can keep uptodate with news and content from your favourite websites all from within a single application.Rich theming options
Don't like Thunderbird's default appearance? Choose from thousands of free, high quality themes to put your own personal spin on your email.Plays nicely with Gmail
Using Thunderbird in conjunction with a Google Gmail account gives you the the best of both email worlds. You will have massive amounts of email storage and online calendaring, combined with a fast, responsive, and businessfocused desktop interface (with the ability to browse your Gmail account when the network goes down).Integrated instant messaging and social network support
Thunderbird features builtin support for popular instant messaging ("IM") services such as Facebook Chat, and Twitter account connectivity. Instead of juggling multiple windows to chat with colleagues, you can enjoy the convenience of managing your conversations within Thunderbird, right alongside your email and calendar. Figure 3 Website news feeds in Thunderbird.And for the ultimate in flexibility, Thunderbird's IM support extends to Openfire, our recommended IM product for businesses. For more information on Openfire and instant messaging for businesses, please visit this link: http://www.apertura.co.nz/whitepapers/APInstantMessaging.pdf
