Google has added much requested IMAP support to their Gmail and Google Apps services, yesterday. IMAP has some key advantages over the basic POP protocol. Most notably, it enables the synchronization of messages and folders amongst multiple mail clients and mobile devices. This is significant particularly as Google is striving to gain market share in the hosted application space targeted at the SMB. The availability of IMAP will now allow business users a more effective use of their feature heavy desktop mail applications, while relying on Google’s robust server infrastructure on the backend.

Given Google’s trend setter status, I am sure other free-email providers are bound to follow suit.

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