After almost 3 months of refinement and testing we are happy to announce that AtMail 5.4 is now available!

We are pleased to report that Firefox 3 is now fully supported and our Websync tool now supports syncing recurrence events, Date alert period and Availability between Outlook and AtMail.

Another new feature many will welcome is support for IMAPs and POP3s, that is secure IMAP and POP3 connections via SSL that allows for encrypted communications between AtMail and the remote mail server. Many other enhancements and fixes have been made since the successful 5.3 release back in March.

Changes in the new 5.4 release include:

• Fixed incorrect timezone offsets in PEAR date module and improved sqlite and PHP4 support
• Correctly purge Exim/ClamAV source directory when rebuilding an upgrade
• Fixed calendar icon overlapping on Month View > Calendar name edit
• Added header(”Pragma: “) for SSL/IE on abook export, correctly downloads for IE6
• Added correct zIndex for calendar month and popup window
• Fixed HTML to Text editor menu in the IE interface
• Added new IMail to Atmail migration scripts ported to PHP
• Added new icalendar_email.html template for invitation notification on calendar events
• Improved LDAP support of Atmail for account creation and user management via an LDAP server
• Fixed position of attachment link in XUL interface
• Fixed SQL query for weekly graphs in the Webadmin interface
• Added support to automatically strip magic_gpc_quotes if enabled in the php.ini
• Added support for Unicode characters in the name field of the email recipient
• Added check to strip ^M/control characters in IMAP_Client.php when writing a message to disk
• Updated maildir search to correct display the Inbox in the select pulldown
• Correctly handle Unicode folder names when using the search function
• Added support for IMAPs/POP3s via SSL
• Added improved TNEF detection via installer
• Added case insensitive check to CSV import file
• Updated Firefox 3 compatibility
• Updated Calendar to toggle 12hr/24hr display of time depending on the users setting
• Updated Webadmin database repair/optimize to call new atmail.sql file
• Removed HTML entities when searching via the Ajax interface
• Added support for multi-layered EML forwarding - Recurses through layers and will forward each embedded email
• Updated XHTML POP3/IMAP login page to obey settings for mail-server and mail_type in Config.php
• Fixed maildir search to sort by date as default for the Ajax interface. Including a prompt when moving all messages from a folder as empty under the Ajax interface.
• Fixed Cpanel installer clash with internal ‘lang’ variable
• Fixed sort by last login via the Webadmin panel
• Implemented language support to the Calendar interface and HTML editor
• Fixed scrollbar to automatically display when searching via the Ajax interface for a large amount of rows
• New Websync supporting recurrence events, Date alert period and Availability synced
• Added new change-password utility to the Subadmin user
• Fixed Ioncube support for PHP 5.2.5+ which does not support dl() for pathnames
• Updated to ClamAV 0.93.1

Existing customers can upgrade to the latest version via the client-interface. Demo evaluation versions are available for direct download to test on your own system, or view the online demo for instant access to test-drive AtMail.

Apple’s announcement at the WWDC was mainly of the 3G iPhone - an announcement that met somewhat lukewarm reception by fans and critics alike. Somewhat unexpected given Jobs’ ability to sell, perhaps it is open for dissection.

While a lot of people welcomed cloud computing capabilities, along with push email, addressbook and calendar features, common points of contention include:

• The price of the service. At 8.95 a month on top of the fees with the 2 year contract attached to the 199 USD iPhone, it seems a bit steep. Perhaps even counteracting the price drop announced.

• The wrapping of applications via the controversial FairPlay scheme, coupled with a centralized gateway to acquire the aforementioned is also a hot topic. With the slow but sure demise of DRM technologies, this may be a step in the wrong direction.

• While welcome to end users, enterprise implementations may be hindered by the fact that data is stored via Apple; some lament the lack of an implementation divorced from me.com.

It is not all for the worse, however. The MobileMe service has so far looked elegant, with features that are highly useful and intuitive - a stamp of Apple’s dedication to human interface guidelines, and implementations that just work.

This might also turn the gears towards a computing feature that is web-based. Recent developments in the IT industry suggest a return to its thin-client roots; where applications are accessed via a central mainframe, through transparent
browsers.

The hype’s temperature so far? No bangs, but large whimpers. However, critics do not doubt that the newly-announced MobileMe service will in fact sell; after all, we are all familiar with Apple’s track record at making products a commodity.