Chapter 19. The Future of Email
In this chapter:
Trends in MUAs
Trends with Web-based Mail
Trends Inside Firewalls
Electronic mail is likely to remain one of the fundamental enabling technologies for interpersonal messaging for some time to come. This chapter reviews some of the trends in commercial and open-source electronic mail systems to provide a peek at the future of messaging.
The most visible changes to email occur at the user interface. Every user sees new features and functions when they change the face of an MUA. Too, many types of messaging services are converging on email with the trend of computer-telephony integration (CTI). Paging services, facsimile services, and voicemail are all appearing in modern commercial MUAs. Trends in MUA design, use, and integration with other protocols and applications will be discussed in the next section.
Perhaps the most interesting change in email clients has been the explosion in Web-based mail services. These services are properly MUAs; they connect to standard IMAP and/or POP MRAs. They simply extend the MUA user interface across the network using the Web. Trends in these services and how they help to drive changes in electronic mail standards will be discussed.
Corporations and other large users of email such as governmental departments have different requirements than individual mail users. We will also discuss trends occurring inside the firewalls of these organizations, specifically the integration of email with other services such ...
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