Synovel's open-source Spicebird, though still in beta, has edged ahead of competitor Thunderbird (and the pay-to-play Postbox). Spicebird is based on Thunderbird's code, but with an updated interface and many added features, it has become more of an all-in-one communication center than a simple desktop e-mail client.
Some people argue that the days of desktop e-mail clients are coming to an end. But even though internet seems to follow us everywhere we go, I think this is a bit hasty. Corporations have Outlook (until the day they're freed from Exchange), and home users have Outlook Express, or Windows Live Mail, or perhaps more famously - Thunderbird. But it's true that people are outgrowing it.
Maybe there hasn't been a clear direction for development, or enough interest in the product, but Thunderbird has been floundering with version 2 for over two years now. Sure, Thunderbird is in the beta stages of its next major release, but frankly there doesn't seem to be anything earth-shattering coming down the pipe.
This is where Spicebird steps in. A self-described collaboration suite, Spicebird mashes together a whole slew of services that we usually use separately - e-mail, calendar (including network calendars like Google Calendar), to-do list, chat, and finally a modular and useful home page (welcome screen). Spicebird's home page can be customized with views of other components, and the best feature of all - iGoogle Gadgets. Just click Add Applet-->Google Applet and drag an iGoogle Gadget onto the new applet box. There are thousands of gadgets available, with countless ways to customize your home page (only OpenSocial gadgets don't seem to work for now).
Some of these features can be had in Thunderbird via extensions, but Spicebird is designed around them, and they are integrated tightly. (Spicebird doesn't yet support an equivalent number of other extensions, but they're slowly arriving). And while Thunderbird 3 offers a tabbed interface, it is nowhere near as useful as the dedicated tabs for each of Spicebird's main components.
Take a look at the Spicebird roadmap to get an idea of what is already built-in and what's to come. Unfortunately, development is crawling along, with few releases and little news, but once they reach the version 1.0 mark, expect to be blown away by new features: MS Exchange connector, document management, Drupal CMS integration, etc.
Synovel is also developing an enterprise spin-off of Spicebird, which does look impressive - let's just hope it's not going to sidetrack them too much from developing the open-source Spicebird client.
Download latest version:
Spicebird v0.7.1 beta
| Homepage: | http://www.spicebird.com/ |
| Supported OS: |   |
| Portable version: |  (But try here...) |
| 64-bit version: | Unix builds only |
| Active project: |  Slow progress however... |
| No strings attached **: | |
** No spyware, ads, nags, registration reminders, etc.
