Mozilla lays out Thunderbird future

Mozilla says while it will maintain and even update its Thunderbird e-mail program, innovations and enhancements will be up to the Thunderbird community. Thunderbird users can look forward to upgrades down the road, with versions 14, 15, 16, and 17 on the horizon, JB Piacentino, managing director of Thunderbird, wrote in a Mozilla blog. Piacentino's blog entry was in response to reports that Mozilla was dumping Thunderbird, CNET.com reported Tuesday. Mozilla plans to support the application at least until the second half of 2013, Piacentino wrote, but beyond that Mozilla will shift the hardcore development of Thunderbird from itself to the community. "To be more specific, Mozilla will no longer focus on developing innovations for Thunderbird but will keep it safe and stable," Piacentino wrote. "Mozilla will also provide all the infrastructure required for new, community-developed features to be integrated in upcoming Thunderbird releases." Thunderbird has more than 20 million users, Piacentino said, with the product gaining support from corporations, governments and schools. However, Mozilla apparently feels the future means the Web and focusing more on the mobile arena. "Mobile ecosystems are pretty much siloed and closed and we think that bringing the Web technologies and values to mobile can make mobile better, Piacentino wrote. "Thunderbird remains a very good desktop-only e-mail client but it does not really align with this strategy."