GMail's Lead Engineer
Comments on e-mail and Gmail from the lead engineer, Paul Buchheit. Our family has migrated to Gmail from Lotus Notes. Spam was getting awful, and because Gmail offers so much storage, I decided it made sense to outsource the whole problem of e-mail (technical) management to a company that is not likely to go away any time soon.
The "Conversations" concept is a real improvement in keeping track of the back-and-forth around a thread of e-mails. The new auto-save mode is TERRIFIC, especially given the problems with losing what you've typed in a web browser. Gmail saves whatever you have typed every minute or so. Your message sits in draft mode in the event you lose a connection.
Official Google Blog: Guess what just turned 34?
Gmail is so incredible. I don't understand how Google can afford to give thousands of people 2 gig of space. When are they going to release Gmail commercially?