[imp] "big three" webmail providers courting campus

[Chuck Hagenbuch]

Quoting Liam Hoekenga <liamr at deathstar.org>:

> Our institution is being courted by Hotmail and GMail (and I wouldn't be
> surprised to see Yahoo to throw it's hat in the ring) - encouraging us
> to stop providing email service to our students, instead allowing
> provider /X/ to host all of our student email.
>
> One of my coworkers pointed out today that Google had placed an ad in
> our student newspaper asking people to take a survey, rating their
> satisfaction with our current email service (which, as far as students
> are concerned is IMP), and comparing it to how much more they like GMail
> (the survey's a little slanted).
>
> Anyhoo... some of the results could be changed by offering different
> Horde modules ("No IM or calendar functionaliy", "Can't get my mail from
> my mobile phone."), but the big one was a cry that the UI for IMP was
> too complicated.  These are early results, specific to our school...
>
>     What would you like to change about your school's current email system?
>      - Complicated Interface (24%)
>
>     What's the primary way that Gmail, Google Talk, and Google Calendar
> could be better than your school's current systems?
>      - User Interace (50%)
>
> I just don't see the UI for IMP becoming more streamlined as time goes
> on.. unless there are major plans for the Horde 4 / IMP 5 release.
>
> We don't have Kronolith or MIMP installed.  We're eagerly awaiting DIMP,
> but I fear that google's goal here is to organize a grass roots movement
> to get students to demand that we switch to GMail institutionally.
>
> I guess this is just a cautionary tale.  With the big three webmail
> providers offering free or massively subsidized hosting for entire
> student populations,  Horde is going to have to work real hard to stay
> attractive and / or relevant.

I think that the main argument for Horde in this respect is always  
going to be that you get to stay in control of your data. That won't  
be enough for some people, but there really isn't a way that we can  
compete with big corporations on design, etc.

I think that if universities are interested in having Horde as a  
competitive solution that it would be in everyone's interest for them  
to pool resources. A little bit of support from 10 institutions would  
go a long, long way towards, say, having a UI designer go through the  
interface.

I guess I'm also not sure why you don't see IMP's UI getting better?  
I'm not saying we're going to rip out features to streamline things,  
but we can make things configurable or more intuitive without killing  
features period.

-chuck