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| Page 1: Introduction |
| Page 2: Key Criteria (You are here) |
| Page 3: How We Tested |
| Page 4: Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 |
| Page 5: Windows Live Mail |
| Page 6: Apple Mail |
| Page 7: Mozilla Thunderbird |
| Page 8: Performance |
| Page 9: Report Card |
| Page 10: Analyst's Choice |
| Page 11: Appendix |
Key Criteria
Over the past several years, sending and receiving e-mail has become increasingly popular across many age groups. With so many options and interfaces available, including web-based e-mail and offline clients, it can be difficult for the average user to assess which client is right for them. While web-based e-mail such as Yahoo! Mail and Gmail are extremely popular and convenient, offline e-mail clients provide users with many benefits and it is important to further evaluate them and determine both their benefits and drawbacks. When evaluating these offline e-mail clients it is important to point out key attributes and important criteria that must be taken into account when testing this technology.
When evaluating offline e-mail clients, some of the more important features to consider are time to launch, time to attach files, compatibility with web-based e-mail clients, presence of calendars and organizers, and operating systems supported. We tested many other aspects of these mail clients but these criteria were extremely vital when considering the strengths and weaknesses of individual clients.
Time to launch is important when it comes to user access. You do not want an application that takes very long to start up. If a mail client takes an extended amount of time to launch it might be better for to utilize a different offline client or simply use online mail clients which are relatively fast, based on the strength of the internet connection. The amount of time to add attachments is a very crucial. You will not benefit from a mail client that takes long lengths of time to attach files to a message. How mail clients perform on this element could determine whether you choose one client over another. Furthermore, it is important to consider whether a mail client can even send a large file. If some files cannot be sent then perhaps a particular mail client may not be beneficial to users who wish to send many attachments via e-mail. One key attribute of offline e-mail accounts is that it can be compatible with already existing web mail accounts. Therefore, another key criterion that we examined was the clients’ compatibility with different web-based e-mail accounts such as Yahoo! Mail, Hotmail, Gmail, and Syracuse University’s MyMail. Other than receiving and sending e-mail, users seem to want more features in an e-mail client. That is why the presence of calendars and other organizers are important. The presence or lack of these features could be a deciding factor for some customers and encourage their decision of one client over another. It makes the client more convenient and useful and transforms it from simply an e-mail client to an all-in-one application. Lastly, some e-mail clients are made to be used only on a certain type of operating system. A key attribute of a good offline client would be to service more than one operating system. This would make it more accessible to different customers utilizing different operating systems. The aforementioned criteria are very important when evaluating how a client measures up compared to others. All of these were taken into account while we evaluated the increasingly popular applications of offline e-mail clients.