A Short Rant on Webmail Services

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While Zimbra, OddPost (now part of Yahoo), Scalix (running OddPost’s code), Webmail.us, Fastmail.fm, and Gmail have all set new standards for web-based email access, it’s striking to see certain other companies stand still. For example, RIM’s webmail service ought to be a positive embarrassment to the company. From its lack of compatibility with Firefox and most Mac-based browsers, to the inability to easily re-sort messages, to the bad quota management (the Cingular version of RIM’s service allows a mingy 25 Mb), RIM’s offering is one of the worst. It wouldn’t even be hard to fix - it’s not like standards are a secret, or like disk space is expensive. While RIM’s main service and handhelds are certainly nice, its webmail is a last century product. Is it just NTP that has been distracting them?