Content area
Full Text
Despite all the hoopla about the Web, electronic mail remains the single most important application for any network, including the Internet. This means that users who depend on their E-mail for critical communications (and there are a lot of them) need applications that are fast, reliable and easy to use-applications that fit well into the way users do their jobs.
In the current market, at least, this is a problem that is getting easier to solve as time goes on.
One reason is that Netscape Communications and Microsoft both are giving away applications like these for free as part of their browser packages.
And while the E-mail that's typically included with a Web browser is rarely as full-featured as a stand-alone application, it's still good enough for most people.
This means that an E-mail application that costs money has to be good enough to make people want to buy what they could otherwise get for free. The good news is that some E-mail applications actually are.
All three of the products reviewed here are designed to work as Internet mail clients and will work with servers using Post Office Protocol (POP3) and SMTP connections.
Each also includes features that automate mail management, each will work on your corporate intranet (assuming it uses TCP/IP and POP3), and each can be downloaded from its respective Web site by users wishing to try the product out.
The 32-bit version of San Diego-based QualComm Inc.'s Eudora Pro 3.0, which was used with Microsoft Windows 95 in our test, is designed to take advantage of this more powerful environment.
Eudora Pro 3.0
Eudora Pro, for example, can handle long file names, and you can add attachments to an E-mail message simply by dragging the file icon to the mail-editing window, then dropping it.
Similarly, Eudora Pro is well-integrated with the Microsoft Dial-up Networking application. By default, Eudora Pro invokes Dial-up Networking when it loads, if it's not already loaded.
You also can set Eudora Pro to load and unload the network software automatically each time it needs to send a message or check...