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I think your idea is doomed, even if you achieve technical nirvana in email delivery. Here's why: 1. You will not beat MS in the exchange market. "Everyone" us

I think your idea is doomed, even if you achieve technical nirvana in email delivery. Here's why: 1. You will not beat MS in the exchange market. "Everyone" uses office, therefore everyone has the outlook client, it's a short hop to installing Exchange, and it can scale right up to enterprise size adequately enough that you'll never be able to touch it. You can see how IBM and Novell have both been destroyed in this market if you're interested in the battle you face. EDIT: Corporations will not even talk to you, because honestly, email is a problem that is already solved for 99% of them. Additionally, if they're big, it is much easier for them to just go with the flow and use the common system - no one ever got fired for buying IBM, and no one ever got fired for using exchange. Look at Symantec, many people have them beat in the AV game, but they own the mid level market. 2. On the startup end, you're competing with free software and hosted solutions. If startups aren't comfortable with gmail or similar, odds are they just stick with their domain host's offering and use the local client of their choice. I suppose there could be a very real market for a hosted email service that gives the flexibility of gmail with the comfort of a paid, secure service. I think though that it would be very difficult to firstly find this market, and second present an offering that is tempting enough for them to switch. Honestly, don't waste your time on this one... the work required just to meet the minimum expectations is so vast it isn't worth it.

tmpk 18y ago
Thanks for your comments. Companies like Zimbra and PostPath have achieved some success in competing with MS Exchange. Why do you think building an email server like Exchange is too much of a technical challenge? Also, my idea is not to build yet another email delivery solution, you are right that problem is 99% solved. But an office worker receives literally thousands (counting mailing lists) of emails a day. Even with folders and rules, there is a lot of human effort required to sort through all this email. That seems like a real pain point to me.
- run4yourlives 18y ago
  I wasn't suggesting that it was a technical issue at all really. It would be a difficult task, but certainly not out of reach for many people I know, so I wouldn't suggest that it would be out of your reach either. The problem would be selling it. The issue with your second observation is that while it is true, the work is distributed, thus isn't a source of pain to the company - they entity you're trying to sell to. There are plenty of GTD tools out there, but this doesn't have anything to do with email.

tmpk 18y ago

Thanks for your comments. Companies like Zimbra and PostPath have achieved some success in competing with MS Exchange. Why do you think building an email server like Exchange is too much of a technical challenge? Also, my idea is not to build yet another email delivery solution, you are right that problem is 99% solved. But an office worker receives literally thousands (counting mailing lists) of emails a day. Even with folders and rules, there is a lot of human effort required to sort through all this email. That seems like a real pain point to me.

run4yourlives 18y ago
I wasn't suggesting that it was a technical issue at all really. It would be a difficult task, but certainly not out of reach for many people I know, so I wouldn't suggest that it would be out of your reach either. The problem would be selling it. The issue with your second observation is that while it is true, the work is distributed, thus isn't a source of pain to the company - they entity you're trying to sell to. There are plenty of GTD tools out there, but this doesn't have anything to do with email.