That’s not true from what I’ve seen — it also runs in IE, and Zimbra says so on their site. What do you see that suggests it’s Firefox-specific?

“….zimbra from what I can tell just uses IMAP anyway, so in theory it could talk to your IMAP server but still allow you to use whatever else you wanted as well….”

Having tried Zimbra I can say that it’s not “in theory” that you can use an IMAP client — but indeed you can use an IMAP client and the Zimbra web client interchangeably. Since all actions, whether from an IMAP client or the Zimbra client, get synched back the Zimbra server, you can use either one you want at any given moment.

I know people who have learned to work with Gmail and thanks to applications like Google Desktop have closed the loop between what is Local and what is Server.

Now web based mail systems may not be replacing what you think is your unique specialized desktop mail application suite, but when it really comes down to it, it is just what you are used to… There are a LOT of people who have already transitioned and are loving it.

Get with the program, or you’re going to be the odd-ball who insists that his situation /setup is unique and can’t afford to move ahead with technology.

Marcus, your point about XUL/CSS is a good one, although that code is running in a security realm (the local machine) that your average web-based app wouldn’t have access to, which is something you tough on as well, talking about integration with the OS.

I think this may in the end be the biggest hurdle — Something like a web browser, which is essentially a client-side piece designed to display any information from the Internet in a standard way will by definition be very difficult to give access to local resources in a secure way (look at the sheer number of IE vulnerabilities that exist because of flaws in ActiveX or Javascript doing this badly).

As far as a web app only working on Firefox…. I think this is the one app that you could safely install on any computer, even an employers, without much backlash. I don’t give a crap about IE. I can convince anyone, even my very non-techy folks to install Firefox by just scaring them with IE virus horror stories. I’ve done it.

Looking at Firefox (Gecko) as a platform, it’s young but pretty stable and fairly mature. The memory handling leaves a bit to be desired. But I think that AJAX and XUL can really make web based apps a strong alternative to desktop apps in the near future.

I think that the one limitation will be integration with the OS. We’ll see how that goes. That little Google Talk client has already made Gmail much more usable for me. So maybe it’s a combination of small desktop apps with robust web apps that tie it all together?

So, do you guys agree with Dan Gillmore that it will probably be more than 5 years before web-based clients will be able to replace the thick-client apps we are using now?

I think a lot of these web-based apps can co-exist with an e-mail environment you can still get your hands on.

I mean, zimbra from what I can tell just uses IMAP anyway, so in theory it could talk to your IMAP server but still allow you to use whatever else you wanted as well. (My personal beef with Zimbra is that it appears they expect you to install Zimbra and all its components in one fell swoop — MTA, IMAP server, etc. — and they are using standard software, which is great, but there’s no real documentation/support for the scenario where I already *have* postfix, courier-imap, etc setup, and I just want their web component. Not that I can’t poke through their tarball and snag what I need, but it’s still annoying.)

I think the flaw, at least from what I’ve seen, with this Zimbra app in particular as a solution is that it’s a little too resource intensive in trying to do GUI things that web browsers just aren’t capable of doing. It’s firefox-specific, which is not cool, and even Firefox was chugging trying to render all the fancy GUI stuff. Web-based stuff is great and improving as a replacement for the local software app in general, but there are some things it’s just not up to doing (yet), I think. Then again, maybe the flaw is just that Zimbra is trying too hard to emulate the look-and-feel of a desktop app when they really shouldn’t.

But we’ve been demoing other similarly themed apps, like one called Centraview which is designed to be groupware + business operations (CRM, etc), and it has an interface that is pretty nice. It’s not perfect, but the idea is. Having e-mail centralized on a server is a no-brainer for us — having it accessible via IMAP to web clients as well as local software clients is the route we’ll probably go. This gives you a maximum of flexibility.

Marcus, as for your situation — check out squirrelmail. It’s probably not as tough to set up as you think, if you just want barebones webmail for her. It’s what Amanda and I use on our personal server as well..