Sun drops MySun free email service

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Sun is dropping its free email service MySun from March 24, in a house clearing exercise.

In an email to users last week, Sun said: "We have come to the conclusion that we can no longer support a free email service as it is currently offered to MySun subscribers.

"Effective March 24th 2003, we will discontinue the MySun email service. We are notifying you of this change now in order to give you enough time to identify an alternative email solution and move your messages to a new provider"The MySun email service was launched around the time Microsoft acquired Hotmail some years ago and even though Sun execs rarely tired of pointed out that Hotmail's backend ran on Solaris servers, the thinking was they wanted to be able to offer an alternative of their own.

Some MySun users have greeted the decision with sadness, and a little anger that its discontinuation comes without any apology. They tell us the service (though not without its quirks) is superior to more popular options such as Hotmail.

One Mysun user, Gerry Smith said that he liked features such as auto-forwarding of received email, "noticeably better uptime performance than Hotmail", POP3 account access, priority flag and read/delivery notifications from mail servers and 10MB Inbox space. Gerry also said that MySun was "always a bit clunky to use (i.e. two browser windows) but worth the hassle".

News source: The Register

The language interface should now be done so you can start to translate the program. Send me all the translations so I can include them to the official distribution package. And there's a cool new feature for you who translate the program: If your translation contains errors and you try to use it the program automatically creates an ErrorLog.txt to your Languages dir. That file should help you to find the error.

The final version should be released in the beginning of year 2003 and in the meanwhile the version 1.1 will remain as the primary download.

At this stage you should report everything you find. If it's any way possible, you should report your comments and bugs to me, you can use the forum, the bug report form or the feedback form on jv16.org.

#1 Fotix on 03 Jan 2003 - 02:01

I never knew Sun had a free email service...anyway, I hope Novell doesn't drop theirs. :disappoin

(1 reply) #2 tmaxxtigger on 03 Jan 2003 - 02:27

Perhaps if Sun had better marketed their product more folks would have made use of it, and it would have been successful! All these companies fail to follow MS in their marketing.... and fail... :-(

#2.1 warr on 03 Jan 2003 - 14:54

[neoquote=#2.0 by tmaxxtigger]Perhaps if Sun had better marketed their product more folks would have made use of it, and it would have been successful! All these companies fail to follow MS in their marketing.... and fail... :-([/neoquote] well. m$ is just good at marketing.

#3 episode on 03 Jan 2003 - 03:06

MySun was the greatest because they NEVER EVER turned off accounts. Regardless of what you were doing with it.

(3 replies) #4 Eric Ferleman on 03 Jan 2003 - 03:51

[quote]even though Sun execs rarely tired of pointed out that Hotmail's backend ran on Solaris servers, the thinking was they wanted to be able to offer an alternative of their own. [/quote] Hmm....never heard of their free email service. They must have some bad marketing people.

I guess their "alternative" didn't come out the way they thought it would. How amusing. Now....if they would just drop their version of Java, we would all be better off.

Last edited by 7725 on 03 Jan 2003 - 03:56

#4.1 Fotix on 03 Jan 2003 - 04:14

I agree, I've been to Sun's own site for stuff a bunch of times and I don't ever recall seeing anything about free email in the sections I've visited (not the front page). Chalk one up for their marketing here I suppose. Slightly off-topic territory: Java is fine... it's just that people have used Java applets for the most insane reasons like scrolling tickers on webpages and other garbage. I used to play a bunch of multiplayer online RPGs written in Java years ago and that was a useful application of technology. It was what inspired me to switch from using Microsoft's VM to Sun's because Microsoft's was incompatible with it. I had no clue at the time why the one that shipped with Windows wouldn't work but now I know better. Here's a Java/Linux hybrid product that would've been more expensive had it been made with a Microsoft software (as an example): http://www.sharp-usa.com/products/ModelLanding/0,1058,698,00.html It would suck if I had to pay an additional tax to Microsoft for every electronic device I bought that used their software. I'm glad that at least the hardware vendors (Sony/Panasonic/Sharp) are going to use software thats cheaper to keep the cost for me and them down.

#4.2 Eric Ferleman on 03 Jan 2003 - 04:39

Yeah, I just looked around again on Suns website, and finally noticied the little "My Sun" text link at the top of the page. Not a very obvious section at all, no wonder it never was that successful. Who wants to dig around to find something, even if it is free? Forcing Microsoft to use/include Sun's version of Java ridiculous. As someone once said (guess who): "They don't want to compete in the marketplace, they want to compete in court." Which basically sums it up. Suns Java is freely available for download on Suns website for anyone who wants it. It seems like Sun is embarrassed that not many people are downloading it after all. So they try to resort to legal trickery. Blame it on Microsoft.....it’s all their fault......(sure it is

#4.3 JaggedFlame on 03 Jan 2003 - 16:36

I think the problem is not so much which JVM they include, but what they're doing with Java in the future. This company doesn't seem to realize that they have no final or definitive plan for the future: they're just quibbling about things like JVM which have practically no use anymore. Microsoft's looking at web services, and that's where Sun needs to be right now.

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