Linspire announced the first of many free services offered to desktop Linux users. FreeLinuxEmail, an IMAP email and Net file storage service developed by Messaging Engine of Melbourne, Australia, provides desktop Linux users a free server-based email and file storage service that works with both web-based and client-based email. IMAP is a superior email protocol over POP systems offered by most free email services. IMAP's server-side functionality allows email, folders, drafts, templates, and files to be accessed at anytime, from any computer, via the IMAP server. IMAP allows you to read, send and manage all your email and folders from multiple computers, such as from work, home or from a laptop when on the road, yet still use a powerful email client, such as Thunderbird or Evolution.

"On the heels of Freespire 1.0 and our free CNR Service, we are excited to now begin offering several free services to desktop Linux users," said Kevin Carmony CEO of Linspire. "FreeLinuxEmail is significant in that it is a full-featured IMAP service, not POP or only web-based, like most free email offerings. Desktop Linux users tend to be a power-hungry lot, and will prefer a free IMAP service. This is only the first of many free service offerings that we will be bringing out in the coming months for desktop Linux users."

Integrated into the Linspire and Freespire customized email client, based on Mozilla Thunderbird and accessible through an easy-to-use setup wizard, FreeLinuxEmail account users will also have immediate access to FreeLinuxEmail's fast and powerful web interface that uses IMAP for synchronizing email with the user's local email software and SMTP for sending mail. In addition, each user will also get a free file storage area that is accessible via FTP and other protocols for easily dragging and dropping files to or from a user's file storage area. Users are given several @domainname options to choose from, such as @freelinuxemail.com, @tryoutlinux.com, & @freespire.org.

"For every part of our core infrastructure, FreeLinuxEmail relies heavily on the security and reliability of open source software," said Messaging Engine & FastMail.FM CEO, Jeremy Howard. "With Linspire, it is exciting to offer desktop Linux users these same advantages and access to the many advantages that IMAP provides. This includes 'push email' technology to their mobile devices, as well as fully-synchronized email and folders."

The FreeLinuxEmail service will be available to both Linspire Five-0 and Freespire 1.0 users. Users will get a free email account address, storage space for incoming emails and the ability to access their email and send email from any computer connected to the Internet with a web-browser, as well as access email from home/work/away using programs like Mozilla Thunderbird, Outlook Express, Eudora and Netscape Messenger. All IMAP accounts include a clean and powerful web interface to access email, an extensive help system covering all aspects of the service, WAP support to read and send emails via most mobile phones, virus service that checks received messages on the server, and customizable spam service that analyzes received messages.