Thunderbird launches Thundermail and Pro services to offer an open-source alternative to Gmail and Office365, focused on privacy, freedom, and user control. In a somewhat unexpected but definitely interesting move, Thunderbird has introduced a new initiative called Thunderbird Pro and Thundermail. The goal? To take their popular email client beyond the desktop and into territory currently ruled by giants like Google’s Gmail and Microsoft’s Office 365.
It will be free to those that contribute to the code base, but paid by levels for those that do not, at least for now.
Unless the "Gmail" equivalent is offered free, I don't see how they can penetrate the market to displace current Users of Gmail or Live.ca/Live.com !
If the Linux community as a whole recognized that having something like that, available for free, would be a benefit as a beachead into the world of non-Linux Users, maybe operational funding for that could be obtained from a broader base of Linux distro/app Producers!
