MZLA, a subsidiary of Mozilla responsible for the Thunderbird project, has announced the launch of their own email service called Thunderbird, along with the online service suite named Thunderbird Pro. The reason behind MZLA’s venture into email services stems from the observation that Thunderbird is losing traditional email users to Gmail and Office 365 steadily (currently boasting around 20 million users per month). This is due to the fact that these competitors offer more comprehensive client and service capabilities, although they also come with vendor lock-in, restricting user freedom within their own systems. As a response, MZLA aims to create a similar service that is 100% open-source and provides more user autonomy.
Thundermail, the email service built on the existing open-source mail server technology Stalwart, is currently accepting waitlist sign-ups on Thundermail.com. Additionally, the Thunderbird Pro suite includes Thunderbird Appointment, a link for others to schedule appointments in our calendar, Thunderbird Send, a revamped version of Firefox Send for sending large files that was discontinued in 2020, and Thunderbird Assist, an AI assistant service running both locally and on servers, similar to Apple’s Private Cloud Compute, collaborating with Flower AI.
The services in the Thunderbird Pro suite will offer both free and paid packages, initially starting off with a free service for a select group of developers, before expanding to limited free space and paid services for a broader audience. Sources: Mozilla, Forbes, The Register
TLDR: MZLA, a Mozilla subsidiary, introduces Thunderbird email and Thunderbird Pro suite in response to user migration to competitor services, offering open-source alternatives with added user autonomy and a range of AI-powered services.
Leave a Comment