Eudora goes free / open source in 2007, built on Mozilla Thunderbird model

[Human Torch]

Qualcomm gives Eudora a Mozilla makeover

By Stephen Shankland
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
Published: October 11, 2006, 4:20 PM PDT

http://news.com.com/Qualcomm+gives+Eudora+a+Mozilla+mak...

Telecommunications technology company Qualcomm is rebuilding its Eudora e-mail program using open-source Thunderbird software from the Mozilla Foundation.

In the 1990s, Eudora caught on as a popular program for sending and receiving e-mail. But Qualcomm "has decided not to remain in the e-mail market because it is not in alignment with the core business or strategic goals," the San Diego-based company said. The Mozilla-Eudora project is called Penelope, and six Qualcomm programmers are working on it.

On Wednesday, Qualcomm launched its last commercial editions of Eudora, version 7.1 for Windows and 6.2.4 for Mac OS X. These cost $19.95, as opposed to about $50--the price of the last release. The lower-priced software includes six months of support instead of the regular 12 months the company offered earlier.

In the future, customers will be offered no-cost versions of Eudora based on the Thunderbird e-mail application. Those programs, to be released in the first half of 2007, will be open-source and freely available, Qualcomm said. "This is good news for Eudora users," Ferris Research analyst Richi Jennings said. "Eudora hasn't had a bright future for some considerable time--it's hardly been a shining star on Qualcomm's balance sheet...This will move Eudora users onto a more stable code platform (and) one that's being actively developed."