I have another idea!

[#1]

By way of analogy, if I was in the market for a new car, and one car manufacturer was still putting in cassette players with their AM/FM radio, and they still did not offer CD player, or XM/Sirius Satellite radio, or a jack for my iPOD, I would probably draw the conclusion that they're behind the times, and what else in their car is lacking, and out-of-date, and I would probably look elsewhere.  I would further conclude that they're probably out of touch with the market.

Now Sage, let's talk about your Internet Mail function, and the lack of port flexibility or IMAP support, which the industry has been doing for how many years?  And another trend is towards alternatives to Outlook/Exchange, like gmail, maybe Wave.  You haven't touched or changed the Internet mail component since it was written for version 6, and we're now on version 12 ?

Is it safe to assume that you're never going to update that email client? (other then to fix showstopper defects)

Is it safe to assume that the code is so old and unsupported that no one understands what's going on in the code?  And that to add port selection or imap support you would likely break stuff? And virtually take a complete re-write?  Which you can't afford?

I love how contributors on these forums just suggest to people that they buy yet another addon to overcome yet another out-of-date function.  Back to the auto analogy, if I asked the dealer why there was no support for iPOD or Satellite Radio or even CD, and he said "Well you can buy an addon or adaptor", why, I think I'd just mozy on down to the next dealer.

Sometimes, what your surveys don't tell you is that after seven years, it's not the need for the feature functionality so much as the the need to demonstrate that you listen, you care, and you're in touch with your customers.  After seven years...

[#2]

Just for interest, I've organised quite a few invites for Google Wave to members of the ACT! Fanatics Group... might help see some ideas on how to link it?

 Also, re your iPOD comment... "there's an app for that"

Maybe there might be an argument that if the add-ons were that easy to get, the higher volume would mean add-on developers could charge less and still generate a return?