Alex Wright


Remail

December 10, 2003

Lots of discussion in the ID world about Remail, IBM's new research prototype for a next-generation email client.

Several folks have compared Remail favorably to Outlook 2003, but I think that's an unfair comparison insofar as Remail is a research project while Outlook is a commercial product, beholden to market demands; thus, Remail has cool visualizations, Outlook has spam filters.

I think a fairer comparison would be Outlook 2003 to Lotus Notes (and there's no comparison - Outlook is by far the better product). Of course, IBM has a long-standing tradition of inventing the future - disk drives, relational databases, RISC, PCs - only to stand by while other companies make a bundle off those innovations. Here's hoping at least some of Remail's features see the commercial light of day.

In related news, Nadav makes the case for faceted email, along with links to a few other nifty prototypes.


File under: User Experience

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