Focus on the analysis of the existing email clients on the market. Find the most popular ones and review them for Strengths, Weaknesses, Threats, and Opportunities.
Google Gmail
We picked google Gmail as our base client to analyze as this is one email client we are all very familiar with and use daily. We found that Gmail offers a lot of strengths but also a lot of weaknesses. Some more notable strengths are integrations with other Google products and external products, the advanced search, quick RSVP to calendar invites, and the look customizable by themes or colors. Some of the main weaknesses analyzed were that importance mail only had one color code, the free version has a lot of ads, and storage is limited and shared across all google apps within the same account.
We think that some minor improvements could make Gmail even better.
Apple Mail
Apple mail is another email client we analyzed and found interesting results with. There is a plethora of strengths with Apple Mail. Some more notable is that you can connect multiple emails from different clients such as Gmail, Yahoo, or personal domain emails. It is also simple to create custom inboxes, and flag emails with different colors to create a hierarchy of importance, and it is streamlined through different apple products. Some weaknesses we found are that Apple Mail is only for iOs users, the free version only allows for 5GB of storage to the cloud (across any cloud file sharing), and there is no customization regarding the look of the mail client goes.
The biggest downside is that Apple Mail is only available for iOs users, and some competitive mail clients offer a lot more storage for free. Not being able to change themes, colors, or layout limits the user from optimizing the mail client, and we have found it hard to find attachments in email threads.
eM Mail
eM mail client is new for all of us and one that we had not heard of before, so we had to learn how it works. In many ways, we found it similar to Apple Mail, where you can connect multiple email accounts from different clients to one client. There are a lot of color coding options and integration. eM also offers high-security encryption. But, the biggest weakness was that the free version is minimal and offers almost none of the features, whereas the pro version offers them all. They do not have a student discount and there is a one-time payment to access pro features. The search time is also extremely long when trying to reach for emails.
We could see how a student discount could benefit and drive more users And how finding a way to properly sort email drives down the search time and the possibility of the client lagging.
Mailbird
Mailbird is a windows desktop email client only, but it works like many others in the way that you can log in to emails from other email clients, such as Google Gmail. It supports multiple accounts at the same time and is integrated with apps like Instagram, Slack, WhatsApp, etc. We found it easy to snooze, postpone, and make quick replies to emails. The client does, however, have some significant weaknesses, it does not seem to be reading basic HTML code, so some emails do not display correctly. Search filters and options are very limited compared to its competitors. And you have to pay to use it. There is no free option available.
Windows Mail
Windows mail also lets you connect emails from different clients and have them in one place. But windows mail is only available for Windows users. Inbox has a lot of sorting options such as by date, importance, name, etc. Shortcuts and easy-to-use buttons help overall productivity and make organizing and creating tasks or notes easier. There are, however, some barriers. Attachments cannot be dragged and dropped and attachments received have to be downloaded before they can be viewed. Some emails ar not formatted so that windows mail can read them and will show the HTML/CSS code instead. You can also not search for emails by name; you can only search for keywords.