Will the features/functionality of FastMail change?
 

FM has a lot of great features. It would be a shame to see some of them go. Can anybody from Opera tell us how this purchase will change our email? What functionality/features will be lost?

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Some of the features I like are:

1) Folders/personalities -- when I'm in FolderA, it uses PersonalityA when I compose a message. FolderB uses PersonalityB, etc.

2) Ordering folders -- my most frequently used folders are at the top.

3) Hiding folders -- I prefer "hidden unless unread" feature for several folders

4) Custom sieve

5) Advance Spam protection:
* I can set the numeric scores at will to specify what I myself consider "Definite" vs "Probably" vs "Possible".
* Also allows me to specify SPAM {99.9} or not.
* I can also control which folder it will go into, etc.

6) All incoming mail is automatically redirected to another email account for archiving

7) Signatures -- each personality can have their own one.

8) Any many others -- there ar lots of other features that are unique to FM.

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Really nice feature: subdomain addressing. I use this to assign a unique email addr when I have to register somewhere:
* Amazon Books = amazon AT myuserid DOT fmdomain DOT tld
* EBay = ebay AT myuserid DOT fmdomain DOT tld
etc, etc

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I'm not as concerned who is going to own it as much as what changes will occur. Can anybody weigh in on this? TIA!

Hi ya Chipper!

Yes I'm very concerned about Personalities, Notepad, File Storage area, FTP access, redirecting (has worked so nicely for me many times!)

Lisa

That's also one of my biggest concerns. I sure don't want to loose that great feature and the "css/js tweaks" features...

Sherry

No CSS feature would be a big loss for me too.

First, I'd like the feature to remain. It's great.

Second, it took me ages to write CSS that gives me a plain webmail interface that suits me perfectly. I suppose the day is nearer now that the exact CSS I've written won't work, but I can live with that.

Oh the other thing is the extremely full-featured address book, with some customizable fields. I can't bear to lose any of that information - I'm getting older and it's getting harder to remember spouse/kid/pet names and stuff like that for people I don't see so frequently but still correspond with. That feature alone has saved my booty from embarrassment more than once.

Hi Lisa! Good to see you -- although it's interesting the circumstances that pulled both of us out of the woodwork, as well as others. The link below suggests the features will remain intact. Some on the thread aren't totally sure of the source (Barry Collins, etc). Hopefully he is correct.

BTW, I see you are back in VA. Welcome back to the DC area!

http://www.emaildiscussions.com/showthread.php?t=59356

Aside to the Opera folks: can you weigh in on the features/functionality as well as their future status?

Having witnessed/worked in several acquisitions, when the company ends up with 2 "competing" products (e.g. Opera Mail & FastMail), the first feature on the table is consolidation. In our case, I believe (I may be wrong, but I doubt it), that Opera is not only interested in the FM customer base, but also in the FM code/features. Opera probably also understands that due to FM's "niche" position (e.g. really advanced features, and less so for mainstream customers), they would end up losing a lot of FM's customers if they removed some of the advanced FM features.
So my guess is that FM is the new Opera target mail platform.

Taking this into account, I don't think any feature will be lost/removed, unless it clashes with another OperaMail feature, or is not making any money (and even this can be sorted with a reorganised price plan).

So instead of "losing" features, we should expect some new features. Opera targeting the corporate world, we should expect also improvements in business packages & options, including wireless/iPhone integration.

So my predictions:
* Rebranding of the FM interface, most likely with some red
* Making sure FM works well with Opera Browser.
* Development of migration features from OperaMail to FM. This could be completely hidden to us, or be an extension of the current IMAP migration tool. Eventually, today's Opera Mail will cease to exists
* Migration of unique Opera Mail features (anyone has an Opera Mail account?) to FM
* Development of the business/corporate/reseller options targeting medium/big corporations, and especially wireless companies
* Development of wireless interfaces (wap, iPhone, Symbian, ...) and implementing push notifications for iPhone, BB, ...
* Making FM more mainstream, possibly by hiding a lot of options and using a different stylesheet or menu for mainstream customers.
* Inevitably, a review of the subscription levels
* Probably some integrations with other Opera tools, such as the integration of the poll window directly into the Opera Browser with an add-on/tray icon.

Again, I don't have any inside information - these are just predictions - Johan, feel free to comment on these! I just hope that the FastCheck server-side components continue de be supported :).

Eric

I just noticed that Opera has announced they would not sell new subscriptions any longer for Opera Mail any longer: http://www.opera.com/support/webmail/

This seems to tie in with my previous post. They are redirecting all new customers to FM, and will most likely provide some migration for existing customers.

This looks like good news! Thanks for the heads up, Spiderman!

I especially like this one:
Opera no longer sells new subscriptions, or renews existing subscriptions, for Opera Web Mail Premium. If you want a fast and efficient e-mail service with more storage space and features, please try FastMail.FM.

Way to go, Opera Team!!

Hi Eric,

Thanks for giving us ideas :) In general, we intend to do several things at once: Both maintaining the FastMail.FM service as a feature-rich product and develop other Opera-branded products based on the technology and know-how of the FastMail team.

I can't think of any existing features that would be removed because of FastMail becoming part of Opera (but I don't know if Rob intends changes for other reasons!). Future additions may be more influenced, of course, so we can make use of work for other projects also on FastMail.FM.

Oh, well, we may be tempted to paint FastMail red, of course :p

Johan,

If you do opt to paint it red, please keep the current new interface stylesheet available as my tweaks.css requires it.

Also, once things settle down and any planned migrations are completed, please, please, please devote some resources to implementing the full PIM stack (mail, calendaring, and contacts) and syncing we've been requesting for many, many years now. ;)

Before spending resources on this, you should consult Sherry because it is very likely that one of her private stylesheets already has everything sort of red (in the old interface Sherry had several one color stylesheets. In the new interface people haven't published a lot of full stylesheets. It's mostly just tweaks to the few standard stylesheets.

The closest thing I have to red in a full StyleSheet is Coral (based on the concise one) so you can have at it Johan. ;) :D

Sherry

i hope not
 

if they want a red stylesheet, they will i hope pay a proper designer to do it!

They are. Neil Jenkins, the same person who did the current new design, was hired on by Opera.