> the world of desktop mail clients
We live in that world still.
> but basically during the height of MSFT dominance there was only one real mail client: Outlook.
On Windows, you had:
* Netscape Suite (later Seamonkey)
* Eudora
* Pegasus
and (edit:) two of those still exist. Plus, Outlook cost money (unless you used Outlook Express), while Netscape was gratis, and on Linux and most Unix variants, Outlook has never even existed. On Linux specifically there's Evolution and there's KMail.
And I'm sure I'm forgeting a few others.
> Then Thunderbird arrived on the scene
It was a development of the MailNews component of Netscape, to use the same XUL-based platform as Firefox. So, an evolution, not a revolution.
(edit:) Oh, look what I found!
https://missive.github.io/email-apps-timeline/
uncheck 'Web', iOS and Android.
We live in that world still.
> but basically during the height of MSFT dominance there was only one real mail client: Outlook.
On Windows, you had:
* Netscape Suite (later Seamonkey)
* Eudora
* Pegasus
and (edit:) two of those still exist. Plus, Outlook cost money (unless you used Outlook Express), while Netscape was gratis, and on Linux and most Unix variants, Outlook has never even existed. On Linux specifically there's Evolution and there's KMail.
And I'm sure I'm forgeting a few others.
> Then Thunderbird arrived on the scene
It was a development of the MailNews component of Netscape, to use the same XUL-based platform as Firefox. So, an evolution, not a revolution.
(edit:) Oh, look what I found!
https://missive.github.io/email-apps-timeline/
uncheck 'Web', iOS and Android.