Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

> The fact that only recently have they discovered, hey, we had this pretty good email client that we let all but die off.

... You think Mozilla don't focus enough on Firefox, so you think they should spend more money on Thunderbird, which is an app in an almost-nonexistent market (desktop email)?

Some folks are just never happy with Mozilla.

Firefox has massively improved in recent years. WebExtensions being async prevented horrific freezes that used to happen. Rewriting components in Rust, and using web assembly for native libs, are both good for security. And WebRender was revolutionary.



That's not quite my point... my point is they should definitely focus on Firefox. They should probably go back towards doing it in a way that using their rendering engine and JS engine in other products is easier in terms of embedding. And that adjacent products should lend themselves towards those resources being re-utilized or grown organically.

Two decades ago, Thunderbird was in the single best position to provide an alternative to Outlook. Now, not so much. If they'd had the foresight to do that two+ decades ago, they could be in a similar position to Google Docs or O365 today in terms of revenue generation.

They're a bit behind at this point on what people even like in a browser. They should focus on the core technology. I think dropping Servo and the Rust efforts was probably a misstep and burning cash on marketing and buying out unrelated companies altogether doesn't help.

edit: Also, Thunderbird doesn't HAVE to be just a desktop email client. If blackberry had developed email clients for iOS and Android early on, they would still be relevant today.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: