Product Evaluation Technical Report

Introduction

Purpose

The purpose of this technical report is to properly evaluate the assessment and evaluation of two advanced email clients MS Outlook and Mozilla Thunderbird. This is a structured evaluation report for technical assessment of two advanced digital platforms.

Overview

            These software applications are designed and developed as an advanced email client and personal information management. The approaches of such operations are related with direct development of enhanced user experience and assessment of task management through an additional approach. This software assessment and evaluation would help provide proper determination and judgement to the prospects of operational capability.

Limitations

            There are various important considerations related with the research on evaluation. Two of the software applications have a ton of features and proper evaluation and documentation of each features and aspects within the comparative analysis is not possible. The recent upgrades could bring in certain new operational advantages. This would be critical considering the evaluation done on old information. 

Executive Summary

Brief

            This report has been assessed as a technical evaluation for two of the specific email clients. These two software applications are named Outlook and Thunderbird. These are advanced cross-platform email clients that are related with the designing and development of an interactive user interface through their applicable analytics and assessment. The companies that are behind the host and venturing of the applications are Microsoft and Mozilla respectively. In this particular structure of the evaluation report, detailed assessment and management has been provided for the respective implementation of the strengths and weaknesses of both these software systems and their applications and features. In this application the assessments have been done on the basis of comparative analysis of their detailed operations and user experience.

Recommendations

            Both software platforms are highly advanced and well managed throughout. However, their differences and their structure of implementation need to be changed through direct consideration and analysis of the relevant perspectives of the systems. The designing and governance has to be implemented with proper approach and assessment of the directional systems and their considerations. The relevant systematic preferences have been directed towards the application of operative logic for the systems and their approaches through the systematic structures and their implications. Total of thee considerations have been directly compared. Out of these applications the feature of account creation and link has been assessed. The functions of email management and file management have been associated with proper determination.

Background

Review of Theory

These structures of operations have been placed through direct assessment and application of the strategies of approach and development of the considerations. This topic under evaluation is to provide proper information about how these two software applications are capable enough to handle the specific application for email client considerations.

Historical Information

The innovation of Microsoft Outlook has been dated September 24, 2018. This application has been included within the structure of Office 365, which was implemented in the year 2006 through other software applications.

Microsoft Thunderbird came into being dated July 28, 2003. The application structure was a part of the Microsoft Repository under assessment and application.  The strategic knowledge and application is available in stable release on August 6, 2020.

Discussion

Strengths and Weaknesses

The strengths of MS Outlook have been stated below:

• Implemented with advanced filtering of span and protection against phishing attacks

• Implementation of Smart Lookup feature associated with automatic search application

• Implementation of secure account application can be done similar to Google accounts

The weaknesses of MS Outlook have been stated below:

• Only aliases of Outlook are supported and no other email can be associated here

• Complicated to configure compared to the Mozilla Thunderbird application (Msoutlooktools.com, 2020)

• Cannot handle folder size increase and is more probable to getting crashed

The strengths of Thunderbird have been stated below:

• Application is similar to browsers like Firefox and Chrome allowing multiple tabs

• Fast Search and easy access to certain mails that are within the system platform

• Filtering of Spam and firewall applications are also present along with anti-virus

The weaknesses of Thunderbird have been stated below:

• There is no specification for calendar and task list like there is in MS Outlook

• The interface has been outdated and soon to become obsolete if not upgraded

• The advanced features like dragging and dropping have been present here (Msoutlooktools.com, 2020)

Comparison of Features

            In this particular aspect, the account creation and linking feature of both applications have been assessed and considered (Support.microsoft.com, 2020). In case of MS Outlook, the platform needs to be opened and the Account needs to be added through File -> Account Information -> Add Account application.

Screenshot 1: Account Link (Outlook)

In case of account linking for Mozilla Thunderbird, the operations have been stated below. The name, email address and password are required to be provided for setting up of and account through linking.

 

Screenshot 2: Account Link (Thunderbird)

Comparison of Functionality

            The application of email management for MS Outlook has been stated through easy navigation techniques. The application of More -> Navigation Options -> Mail can be done to easily manage the email presentation of the platform.

 

Screenshot 3: Mail Management

The creation of new email can be done through easy clicking on the New Email icon from mail folder. This is an easy to use platform like the other MS Office applications and their usage.

 

Screenshot 4: New Email

            The structure of email management in Thunderbird is done through appropriate use of editing of contact list through their name and email address as relevant. The direct implementations of such features make it simple to access and operate.

 

Screenshot 5: Contact Edit

            The application of email interface is done through direction platform presentation where the relative application of subject, body and attachments are necessary (Thunderbird.net, 2020). This platform is similar to Google and their basic Gmail operations. On an additional aspect, the safety and security provided by Thunderbird has been implemented here with direct approach and consideration.

 

Screenshot 6: Email Display

Overall Assessment

An overall assessment can be stated that the entire operational systems of MS Outlook have been validated through direct implementation and comparison with Mozilla Thunderbird. The final verdict after evaluation is that the features of MS Outlook might be premium service and are complex to configure, however the entire application is much more efficient than its comparative counterpart. The assessment can be brought to a conclusion that an email client application like MS Outlook is a better choice for management of files and mails compared to Mozilla Thunderbird.

Conclusion

Summary

This report provides a proper assessment and analysis of the respective systematic features of evaluation for both MS Outlook and Mozilla Thunderbird. The applications of the software have been done in terms of their functionalities and features. The designing of various applications relating to usage and approach for both have been considered within the presentation of a staged comparative analysis for the specifications and their judgment has been stated.

Recommendation

Among the consideration of specifications and their values, the operative management of the specifications that are not present within the applications can be stated. MS Outlook does not have the working capability in Linux environment whereas Thunderbird does not work in Android environment. Mozilla Firefox does not have the feature of snooze emails and Threaded. MS Outlook on the other hand is not open source and requires premium considerations.

References

Websites

Msoutlooktools.com, 2020. Mozilla Thunderbird Vs. Microsoft Outlook – What to Choose? Retrieved from [15/08/2020]

Support.microsoft.com, 2020. Basic tasks in Outlook. Retrieved from [15/08/2020]

Thunderbird.net, 2020. Thunderbird Features. Retrieved from [15/08/2020]