13091 As I noted in OS X Odyssey 886 earlier this week, I was pretty underwhelmed by the first public beta release of the new, Open Source Eudora 8.0.0, which, at least so far, is Mozilla Thunderbird with some Eudora-style icons and a few feature tweaks grafted on.

I am a consummate, dyed-in-the-wool, classic Eudora fan, and Mozilla Thunderbird, or for that matter any three-pane user interface email client dating back to Claris Emailer, is simply not my cup of tea, so to speak, and just dressing T-bird up in a Eudora wig and falsies will not make it so.

I remain hopeful that the "Penelope" development team at Mozilla will be able to come up with a decent email client through their labors, which I in no way disparage, but after sampling the first fruit of those labors, it's not a very lively hope, which is, well, a big disappointment. For now, I'm perfectly satisfied with continuing to use classic Eudora 6.2.4, which IMHO is about as close to perfection as any Mac POP 3 email client has come thus far, but at some point in the future it can be safely anticipated that a a Mac OS version upgrade will break Eudora (the OS X version of which is a Carbon port of the old Mac OS Classic Eudora which dates back nearly to the dawn of the public Internet), or some new Web feature will not be supported by the old application, which is no longer being developed by Qualcomm.

However, my spirits got a boost yesterday with an announcement from Infinity Data Systems that they are working on a *real* Eudora successor that will be true to the Eudora tradition and experience. Bravo! I say.

Infinity Data Systems is a full-service software and web development firm that in addition to custom software development also occasionally develops software to meet perceived needs in the market that are currently going unfulfilled - often times programs that they have been using internally, and believe that others would benefit from. There must be some Eudora fans at Infinity Data Systems. The company's statement reads:

"Odysseus is the code name for the Eudora successor that Infinity Data Systems is working. We have always felt that Eudora was a best-of-breed email application for both platforms, Mac OS X and Windows. Easily one of the oldest email applications, it still offers features either not found in competing applications or, if found, not implemented as elegantly."

The name is a cute touch. Even if your Greek mythology is a bit rusty, you probably have heard of Odysseus, King of Ithaca, and the protagonist of Homer's Iliad saga. Well, Mozilla.org's Eudora Open Source project is named "Penelope", and Penelope daughter of Icarius of Sparta, was Odysseus' wife who waited over twenty years for him to return home to her from his Odyssey (from whence derives the name of this blog).

I hope that we won't have to wait 20 years for a decent Eudora successor. The Infinity Data Systems Odysseus mission statement continues:

"Needless to say, we were saddened by Qualcomm's abandonment of Eudora. And while we have the utmost respect for the Thunderbird/Eudora team, like many Eudora users, we don't believe that modifying Thunderbird to mimic Eudora offers Eudora users the features, functionality, or experience they've come to love and depend on. Its our belief that only an application written from the ground up can adequately succeed a program as great as Eudora."

I couldn't agree more. The original Eudora was a work of genius, and it - not another, IMHO inferior, email program must be the inspiration of a worthy successor.

Infinity Data Systems says that an initial Odysseus beta will be released by the end of the year, with the final release projected for toward the end of Q1 2008. They pledge that "the final application will offer full backward compatibility with Eudora, utilize existing Eudora mailboxes and settings, and offer the features and functionality that Eudora users are accustomed to, while at the same time improving on those areas where Eudora lagged behind, such as HTML rendering and OS integration."

Music to this Eudora aficionado's ears.

If you're interested in keeping up with the development of Odysseus, you can either keep checking the ODysseus Web page, which, will be updated frequently, or sign up to receive email updates by sending an email to

For more information, visit:
http://www.infinitydatasystems.com/products/odysseus/index.html



Charles W. Moore

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