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REVIEWSPOPing The Question: What's The Right Electronic Mail Package?by Gregory M. YerxaDoes your e-mail client efficiently organize and manage your e-mail? Doyou wish it could do more? What about support for HTML? Could it be easierto send a proposal to a coworker? Is it easy to manage? If you're unhappywith your current e-mail solution, or you're just rolling out e-mail clientscompanywide, then you'll want to know what we found while reviewing POPmail clients. You might be as surprised as we were. We tested eight POP mail clients in our University of Wisconsin lab. Clientsthat run on Windows 3.x, 95, NT and Macintosh were considered. Two of theproducts are part of Internet and Office suites: Attachmate's Emissary Office2.0 and Frontier Technologies' Supe r Highway Access 2 for Windows. Fiveare standalone POP mail clients, including Eudora Pro, ZMail, JetMail, ProntoMail 2.01 for Windows and Claris Emailer for Macintosh. And, finally, oneis a part of the Web's most popular browser, Netscape. We were looking for a POP mail client with many features and a good baseof utilities to organize and facilitate the use of e-mail. Of these, themost important features were attachments, filters, spell checking and supportedencoding standards. Some of the more distinguishing features included theability to create and manage multiple user accounts, folder hierarchy, advancedsend options, including deferred delivery and scheduling, support of theMessaging API (MAPI) and integrated HTML support. Although all of the clients we tested are good solutions for most e-mailneeds, some provided better features than others. In order to differentiatethe various clients, we examined the methods used to provide the user withmore functionality with less fuss. Some clients were easy to use and efficient.Others were more difficult to use--with missing features and misplaced utilities--andwere their own worst enemies. Top honors go to Eudora Pro, with a strong product and an impressive numberof features smoothly integrated into a pleasing user interface. Also finishingstrongly are NetManage's recently acquired ZMail and the unbundled JetMail,available as a part of its Chameleon suite. Attachmate's Emissary Office1.1, CommTouch Software's Pronto Mail, Claris' Emailer 1.1 and FrontierTechnologies' SuperHighway Access 2 have a good base set of features butare less efficient in the implementation of key features. Netscape's Navigator2.0 client software did poorly, offering a less than adequate base of features.However, integrated HTML support and an extensive use of hyperlinks giveNavigator 2.0 an edge over other clients for some users. 
 Try out our Interactive Report Card ® For more information about our Interactive Report Card ®, click here . QUALCOMM Eudora Pro Eudora Pro was the best product we reviewed. Well-placed tool bars and completedialogue boxes strengthen a core set of features that leaves little leftout. Attachments and e-mail addresses were only a single mouse click away.Spell check and other utilities are also easily accessible. From its helpfulpull-down menus to the never-ending folder structure, Eudora Pro providedmore features than any other package. The first time you run Eudora Pro, a configuration dialogue appears, promptingyou for account information and other configurable options including MAP I(not on the Macintosh version), phone and finger servers. We were also ableto configure many other features involving sending and receiving mail, labelassignments and attachment options. Most notably, we could specify a limitto the maximum message size, thus preventing long downloads over slow connections.This would be a particularly useful attribute on the road. In comparisonto other packages, Eudora has a much easier and extensive configurationmenu, allowing the user to appropriately change and modify the mail client. After filling in all of the account information, we eagerly moved on tothe main dialogue view, where we found a complete pull-down menu structureas well as a nicely rounded toolbar containing almost all features and utilities.Eudora uses its address book in conjunction with the pull-down menu by givingyou a menu entry for as many addresses as you want. Using its nicknamesas menu items, you simply click on the nickname to forward, reply or begina new message addressed to that person. E qually as functional, Eudora Profeatures a similar system of cascading menus that helps you manage yourfolders. Eudora offers support for hyperlinks to HTML documents and attachments.In addition, Eudora features several great message windows, complete withicons indicating an attachment and flags depicting the urgency of a mailmessage. Eudora is also one of a few POP mail clients that uses Windows95'sright mouse functionality. Most of the menu and toolbar items are also presentat the convenience of the right mouse button. Giving you unlimited possibilities, Eudora's folder and mailbox systemsare superb. Each folder can contain as many mailboxes or folders as youdesire. This folder system could easily accommodate all of our test scenariosand wi ll easily provide the organization that you need. Eudora Pro is pricedreasonably and definitely delivers. For a single user or as a network'smain POP mail client, Eudora Pro will fill in nicely into your mix. NetManage ZMail NetManage touts ZMail as "the complete cross-platform e-mail solution"--andit is true to its word. Boasting versions for the PC, Macintosh, Motif andmost Unix-based platforms, ZMail is available for just about anyone. Afterjust a few minutes of testing we determined it is one of the best and mostpowerful POP mail clients available. ZMail, formally from Network ComputingDevices, was acquired by NetManage in June. ZMail provides many of the features as Eudora Pro but there are some obviousvoids. First, ZMail doesn't support hyperlinks or right mouse button supportin Windows95. ZMail does, however, handle multiple user accounts more efficientlythan Eudora. On startup, a login screen appears prompting the user to entera password, setup a new account or work offline. Eudora is capable of multipleuser accounts but requires additional setup, including manually creatingthe directories for each user. Z Mail handles all of the required setup,making multiple user account setup a lot easier for the administrator. ZMail offers a well-organized composition window and tool bar system. Eachwindow has a tool bar specific to the task at hand. For example, the compositionwindow has cut, paste, copy, attach, include and spell check icons, amongothers. These toolbars are convenient and clear, so you are never confused.ZMail also has an impressive search dialogue capable of searching for messagesby pattern as well as date. But these searches are limited to the currentfolder, unlike Eudora's multifolder search. ZMail has two large weak points worth noting. First, ZMail doesn't offerthe folder and mailbox functionality that Eudora offers. ZMail limits theuser to one open folder at a time--this makes manipulating mail messagescumbersome as well as time consuming. Second, filters are poorly implemented,leaving much of the work to users and their knowledge of ZScript. Althoughwe see this as a problem, ZMail does give ambitious programmers the necessarytools to implement more than adequate filters. NetManage JetMailNetManage's JetMail takes a different and refreshing approach to a POP mailclient. Unlike Eudora and ZMail, JetMail is less cluttered with toolbarsand special features. Most information is right in front of you. It is apparentthat the developers spent a lot of time thinking about what a user wantsand needs to know. On the down side, however, documentation is bland andhard to read. Most documentation is left to online help. JetMail's interface is uncluttered, yet most of the features are still availableon toolbars. Each window contains a specific toolbar, much like that ofEudora and ZMail. When composing a message, a new window appears containingall relevant icons on the tool bar and some specific menus right in thewindow's structure. Looking much like ZMail, the comp osition window hasan area for attachments. In this area, attachments appear as icons, indicatingtheir type and associated applications. Double-clicking on them launchesthe associated application, concealing any necessary decoding, quickly movingyou on to work. JetMail also has a very convenient tool for leaving phone messages and memos.Using a special window, you can fill out forms indicating the message andits information, including who called, what time and whether or not to callthis person back. JetMail is a good program overall. While we found that most features werewell implemented, they lacked some of the aesthetic appeal of other packages.Documentation also left something to be desired. In addition to being offeredas standalone product, the JetMail client is offered as a part of the NetMana geChameleon TCP/IP suite. Attachmate Corp. Emissary Office 1.1Emissary Office is unique. Using a single interface for Web browsing, filemanagement, news reading, terminal emulation and e-m ail, it brings the Netto your desktop with one application. Packed with usability, Emissary incorporatesHTML within the mailer and also uses the right mouse button efficientlyin Windows95. Emissary lacks some much-needed organization in its utilities.Offering a file manager-like interface, Emissary takes care of businessin anything but ordinary fashion. Taking advantage of its support for inlineimages and HTML, we were able to send and receive image maps as well asHTML documents. Sending an image map was as easy as dragging it from a Webpage in Emmissary's viewer onto the mail icon and clicking "send."Emissary supports drag and drop from Web pages and it is the only clientthat lets you edit a new HTML document right in the composition window.Emissary was also one of the few mail clients that supported hyperlinkswithin the mail document. Simply clicking on a link in Emissary took usto the Web browser and opened it. Hyperlinks combined with inline attachmentsmake the Emissary mail client one of the most versatile that we tested.Its power to combine different media into a mail message gives it the potentialto more accurately represent your feelings and ideas. The only thing that we didn't like was Emissary's overcrowded menus. Sometimesfinding what we wanted took us down a few different paths before we realizedwhere it was. We also noticed that Emissary slowed down the system a lotwhen downloading and removing more than 50 messages from the server. Thiscan be avoided by choosing to only receive message headers, which is similarto JetMail. However, you have a noticeable delay when viewing each message.Although the Emissary ranked in the middle of the pack after our tests,it is a solid package because of the tremendous number of multimedia featuresit supports. CommTouch Software Pronto Mail 2.0CommTouch's Pronto Mail was our best performer in upload and download tests.It had the largest message capacity of all the clients and was never sloweddown by extreme amounts of mail. Pronto Mail is the best mail client forusers who receive more than 100 messages a day. Although these featuresare important, there are others that are equally important, including theappearance and usability of the product. Pronto Mail has the potential tobe as good as the best, and perhaps even better. With its more than reasonableprice, Pronto Mail can get the job done for a lot less than others.It wasn't long before we found that Pronto Mail has one of the better folderstructures tested. Its nested folders give you much of the same functionalityas Eudora Pro. Each message is neatly displayed in folders with an iconindicating its status. By clicking on a given header, you can automaticallysort the messages by that header, similar to Eudora and Emissary Office.We liked the way the folder window pops up when dragging a message out ofa folder. By dropping it over the desired folder, the message is quicklytransferred. You also can drop it on the New Folder icon in the folder windowand simultaneously create a new folder while transferring the message. Regrettably, Pronto Mail's main interface leaves much to be desired. Limitingitself to one toolbar in the main window, Pronto Mail's overall ease ofuse is limited. Although the composition window has another toolbar, itgives you only buttons, without as much color or aesthetic appeal as othermail clients. Claris Corp. Claris Emailer 1.1Offering a new and innovative interface, Claris Emailer almost beat outthe incumbent Eudora Pro for the top Macintosh client. Using a tab-likeinterface and unique filing system, Claris Emailer provides a quality e-mailmanager with a plethora of features. Support for platforms other than Macintoshdefinitely has to be considered before switching to Claris Emailer becauseit doesn't support other platforms.During the installat ion we were astounded at the built-in support for somany proprietary mail systems. An easy install wizard guided us throughinstallation of America Online, CompuServe and Radio Mail accoun ts--justthe tip of the iceberg for Claris. A total of four different mail accountsplus an indefinite number of Internet accounts can be managed from a singleuser interface. Couple this with the ability to configure numerous locationsfor accessing these accounts and you have the ultimate in mobile mail clients. Other features worth noting include the ability to manage e-mail addressesas names and a destination. For example, you can organize and refer to addressesby company or organization. Network Computing would have its own nwc.comdomain and could be referred to as Network Computing. This would undoubtedlyhelp you with those cryptic addresses that are easy to forget. While it has numerous strong points, Claris Emailer falls short in a fewkey areas. For one, its folder system is awkward and sometimes difficultto use. Nested folders are not supported and the existing filing cabinettreats messages as files, leaving most of the organization to the systemrather than the client. Claris Emailer is a great mail client and for thoseusers who have accounts with online services and use a Macintosh. Frontier Technologies SuperHighway Access 2Frontier SuperHighway Access 2 is the second of the multipurpose softwarepackages tested. It contains a Web browser, Internet organizer, FTP client,news reader and e-mail client. When we first examined the mail client wewere a little surprised at its simplicity. Frontier has a long way to gobefore it competes with the other mail clients. Most features are minimal.Documentation needs improvement almost as much as the client itself does.The only thing that makes this client worthwhile is its low price.SuperHighway's e-mail client does include an extensive filter dialogue boxand filters are easily made and maintained. Message headers include an informativeicon indicating the status of the message and whether or not it has anyattachments. Folders, however, are less than satisfactory, limiting youto single-level incoming mail folders. It gives you just wh at you need andnothing more. Frontier returns to the basics with simple buttons and menus. This simpleapproach to e-mail makes Frontier more efficient and usable. A moveabletoolbar lets you customize the desktop to your liking. The folder hierarchyis functional, allowing you to nest folders. We were a bit disappointed,however, that there was no drag-and-drop support. We were forced to useeither a pull-down menu or a button on the toolbar to transfer a message.Also we found that rules or filters were limited to incoming mail only. Netscape Communications Netscape Navigator 2.0While Netscape Communications' Navigator 2.0 is the Internet's Web browserof choice, its mail software performed well under par compared with othermail clients in our tests. Its limited mail features kept it out of thetop three, and its poor folder structure cements its position at the bottom.We do expect Netscape Communications to take this mail client to the nextstep and we eagerly await future releases.Netsca pe mail is convenient and functional. Allowing users to start a mailmessage simply by clicking on hyperlinked text within a Web page, NetscapeMail seamlessly integrates its mail client into the Navigator browser. Netscapetakes advantage of this integration by identifying URLs and signatures withinmail messages. Again, clicking on the link transfers you to the Web browserand the indicated Web page. Netscape News also uses the mail client forreading and posting news, eliminating the need for an additional news reader. We were most impressed when we were able to mail HTML documents straightfrom the Web browser. It gives you the option of sending a document as textwithout hyperlinks or as a Web page complete with all Java code and inlineimages. Within the mail window you have all of the features present in theWeb browser. Using the right mouse button, in Windows95, you can save aninline image, make a bookmark or reply to the current message. All of this interaction between the browser and the ma il client is greathowever, the mail client lacks many of the more common mail client features.There are no rules or filters for incoming and outgoing messages and foldersare limited to only one folder deep. Netscape's availability and widespreaduse are in its favor. And with future releases undoubtedly on the horizon,Netscape could become a great three in one package. Gregory M. Yerxa is an assistant NetWare administrator for the Computer-AidedEngineering Laboratory at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He can bereached at yerxa@cae.wisc.edu.
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