Requiem

[David Gaskill]

On Wed, 14 Jun 2000 15:52:44 -0700, Steve Lamb wrote:

>> The ultimate reason for developing any bit of software is to make some money out
>> of it. There seems to be precious little prospect of doing that with any of the 
>> versions of PMMail so why spend any time on it?
>
>    This seems to be a common theme of your rare posts. 

Would you like me to post more often? Unlike most on this mailing list I am simply a 
user of PMMail, have no technical expertise and and not therefore competent to enter 
into many of the discussions that take place.

> Simple response, if
>there were no money in the niche market then TB! wouldn't be vying for a a
>major revision and also have plans on the board to port to Linux.  All from
>starting in the Windows market where you assert there is no money to be made.

I am not familiar with TB! So I can't comment. I am aware however that some 
software, particularly for Linux, is written as a hobby rather than as a commercial 
venture - I can think of one OS/2 Mail client that falls into this category. 

No, I don't think PMMail can make money in the Windows market. I have never 
come across anybody that uses it who isn't a migrant from a OS/2. As I have 
suggested previously to carve out even a miniscule share of the Windows market 
would need promotional expenditure which I suspect is beyond the means of the 
present owners. 
>
>    There is money there but infrequent minor releases and broken promises on
>information is not the way to get it.

The vast majority of e-mail I receive is written on Outlook Express. For the 
overwhelming majority of corporate and private users this application is perfectly 
satisfactory. To persuade people to spend money on a mail client rather than use a 
generally satisfactory free one is going to need considerable promotional effort and 
that costs lots of money. 

It would be very difficult indeed to persuade me to use any client other than PMMail 
because it does everything I want and I am thoroughly familiar with it. 

Most people would say the same thing about Outlook Express, Eudora or whatever ...


David