USING THUNDERBIRD FOR BUSINESS FEBRUARY 2015

Transcription

1 USING THUNDERBIRD FOR BUSINESS FEBRUARY 2015

2 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 cross platform...3 Full offline access...3 Calendaring and to do list support...4 Handles ginormous amounts of Handles ginormous attachments...4 Handles multiple simultaneous accounts...5 A rich add on ecosystem...5 Tabbed messaging...5 RSS feed reader functionality built in...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...8 2

3 Introduction is a fundamental part of business communication, and the 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 client application that offers a number of compelling advantages over competing proprietary 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, business grade application. It's designed from the ground up with a feature set which helps you make the most efficient use of as a business communication medium. By comparison, consumer applications like Windows Live Mail and Apple Mail are designed to suit light 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 cross platform 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 full featured 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 access Cloud service providers such as Google advertise the benefits of a web based user interface ("webmail"), but they often critical issues in their marketing. For example, what happens when your Internet access goes down? In this case, no Internet simply means no . With Thunderbird, an invisible background copy of all can be created on the hard disk drive of your computer. When you experience an Internet outage, all of your 3

4 folders including your Inbox and Sent items can still be viewed and managed. This is critical for maintaining business continuity in the case of unavoidable network disruption. Calendaring and to do 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. Figure 1 Calendaring and task list support in Thunderbird. Handles ginormous amounts of As an application designed for business use, Thunderbird is capable of managing tens of thousands of 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 with support for third party cloud storage services like Dropbox. For example, when attaching a large file to an , 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 , which the recipient simply clicks on to download the file. This is an unbeatable feature for businesses where the ing of large files (such as PDF building plans or high resolution images) is a regular activity and Thunderbird makes it as easy as sending any other . 4

5 Figure 2 Dropbox cloud integration in Thunderbird. Handles multiple simultaneous accounts Do you have multiple 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 signature for each address, or different schedules for how frequently is retrieved. A rich add on ecosystem One of the key advantages of Thunderbird over other applications is the availability of hundreds of free add ons that extend the functionality of Thunderbird in several useful ways.1 From enabling quick access to folders to automatically removing duplicate messages, there is an add on for every kind of user. Tabbed messaging If you have ever tried to manage a large number of messages simultaneously with an application like Microsoft Outlook, you will know how frustrating it is to deal with several separate windows, each containing one 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, keyboard shortcuts allow you to navigate through tabbed messages at lightning fast speed. 1 US/thunderbird/ 5

6 RSS feed reader functionality built in With RSS support built in to Thunderbird, you can keep up to date with news and content from your favourite websites all from within a single application. Figure 3 Website news feeds in Thunderbird. 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 . Plays nicely with Gmail Using Thunderbird in conjunction with a Google Gmail account gives you the the best of both worlds. You will have massive amounts of storage and online calendaring, combined with a fast, responsive, and business focused desktop interface (with the ability to browse your Gmail account when the network goes down). Integrated instant messaging and social network support Thunderbird features built in 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 and calendar. 6

7 Figure 4 Twitter account support 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: Open source, open standards Thunderbird's source code is freely available to be modified and enhanced, and Thunderbird supports industry standard communication protocols. These protocols are free to be implemented by any developer of software, and guarantee a minimum standard of interoperability regardless of what client you are using. By comparison, software such as Microsoft Outlook defaults to using its own proprietary communication protocol and the technical details of this are closely guarded by Microsoft. This is designed to lock you in to using their application only. For more information on open source technology and vendor lock in, please visit this link: 7

8 Conclusion Thunderbird is a powerful, hugely flexible, and easy to use business application. Full cross platform support combined with no license fees and smart features saves you considerable time and money. We will be pleased to assess the current use of other software in your business and design a migration plan for you. For more information Contact: info@apertura.co.nz Apertura Designs Ltd Auckland, New Zealand Apertura Designs. All rights reserved. Made exclusively with open source, open standards software. 8