Mozilla officially launched its new Thunderbird focuses spinoff Mozilla Messaging yesterday with David Ascher as CEO. Mozilla Messenging begins with the proposition that e-mail is broken, with its goal being to fix it.
Writes Ascher:
Email and other forms of internet communications present us with a paradox. The stunning proportion of our days spent communicating online clearly indicates that as a society, we are more intricately connected via the internet than ever before….Yet as the number of such interactions grows, and as the number of ways in which we interact grows, the joy that communication can bring is too often replaced by frustration, confusion, or stress.
One common short-hand for the above is to say, somewhat flippantly, that “email is broken”.
….we see our primary role as that of facilitating collaborative approaches to problem solving and incremental progress, through a combination of leadership and facilitation work. This is an unusual approach, and it can be chaotic and slow. But it seems to have worked well for Firefox and the web, and I believe it can work well for Thundebird and email.
It’s a noble cause that starts with a solid email product that has struggled for attention next to the shining beacon of Firefox. We’ll certainly be watching to see what they come up with.
(via IW)
