Making e-mail manageable: Four applications tested

Test bench

E-mail Management
  ISYS:email.search v1.5
  Mailbag Assistant 3.6
  NEO Pro 3.0
  Quick Mail Sort 2.0

 Specifications
 Telstra, Nokia team up
 How We Tested
 Editor's choice
 About RMIT
Interoperability
Which e-mail clients and formats does the software support?

Futureproofing
What features does it have, how easy are they to use, and how useful are they?

Roi
What will the software cost and will this be compensated by the time and resources saved?

Service
What support is provided as standard and how much will support end up costing you?

How we tested
Each application was installed on a desktop machine, a Compaq Deskpro, with a 600Mhz Intel Pentium III CPU, 10GB HDD, 128MB RAM, Realtek 10/100 NIC, Intel 810 chipset, running Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional and Microsoft Office 2003. We tested these applications under either Microsoft Outlook Express or Microsoft Outlook. We also installed the Eudora mail client as these were the most common e-mail clients that the applications supported.

Some of the applications support other e-mail client applications as well; the only application that did not support Outlook was the Fookes Software Mailbag Assistant, so we tested that application under Outlook Express.

We imported our "test" set of recent e-mails totalling over 10,000 messages. These were then placed in several different folders under Outlook and Outlook Express. Each e-mail management application was then installed onto a "clean" system and tested. We also created a live e-mail account to receive and send e-mail to and from.

Sample Scenario
Company: Garrett Garden Supplies
This company's staff are currently drowning in e-mail from a publicly-accessible e-mail address. Customer queries are going unanswered, while others get multiple answers, and this is damaging the company's reputation. The company desperately needs a package to help staff organise e-mail and make sense of the chaos.

Approximate budget: The company expects the package to pay for itself in saved time and better handling of e-mail.

Requires: An e-mail management package that will integrate well with the company's current mail clients.

Concerns: Improved ability to manage e-mail is obviously the key concern here, ease of use and ease of integration with mail clients are also important factors.

Best solution: It's a very close call between ISYS:email.search and Caleo Software's NEO Pro 3. NEO Pro has more features and ways to slice and dice your e-mail, but nothing can beat ISYS for sheer speed.

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Talkback 2 comments

  1. Why no use a Lotus Notes client instead. It does virtually all these products do and more. Not only that, but it does not leave a gaping hole in your system like the Mircrosoft product does. Anonymous -- 20/07/04

    Why no use a Lotus Notes client instead. It does virtually all these products do and more. Not only that, but it does not leave a gaping hole in your system like the Mircrosoft product does.

  2. Better, cheaper, faster! Goldi Lox -- 14/06/07

    I have MSN Desktop search on my PC. I can search for any word or word Combo on my pc and it will give me the info within 15 seconds. And that includes EMAIL. I can even search email ONLY. And it's FREE. Try that and save some $$$, time, and angst!

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