Pine e-mail system to retire

To be or not to be, that is the question. \nFor IU's Shakespeare systems, the answer is not to be. University Information Technology Services sent e-mails to IU users this week informing them that the Shakespeare and Jewel systems, on which the Pine client runs, will be retired at the beginning of spring semester, eliminating the once-popular textual alternative to Webmail. \nRick Jackson, manager of messaging for UITS, said the decision came after surveys showed generally negative responses to Pine. That, Jackson said, mirrored low usage numbers.\n"User satisfaction based on the user survey is pretty low, and the utilization is extremely low," Jackson said. "As we design the new system, it was not deemed to be practically feasible to spend the extra money to continue to support Pine." \nIU's new e-mail system will be designed differently than the current one, with mail not stored on any one server, Jackson said. Adjusting Pine to that setup would mean an additional half million dollars to a project that is already costing IU $1.5 million. \nEven with the immense cost, Jackson said the usage numbers don't add up. Of IU's 138,000 users, only 10,000 accessed Pine in the last two months. Jackson estimates at least 70 percent of those came during the Ariel outage. He suspected many turned to Pine hoping it was only Webmail that had crashed. \n"We don't have money in the budget (for it) and a half million dollars for a few thousand people is a pretty expensive service to have," Jackson said. "It's not just a cheap thing to continue to provide."\nThough they might not be numerous, fans of the Pine system said they were distraught to learn of the planned retirement. \nGraduate student Alison Rollins learned to use Pine through a class in the School of Library and Information Science. Rollins said she's a member of a handful of listservs that fill her mailbox up with too many messages for Webmail to handle expeditiously. \n"It's kind of sad," she said. "I'd really miss it if they decide to do it -- I'm hoping they change their mind. It's far better than anything else I could think of using. I have 200 e-mails to get through, and with Webmail, it is very, very time intensive. With Pine I can do it quickly."\nJosh Klugman, a doctoral student in sociology, began using Pine in 1998. Back then, Pine was the only option. Even with the introduction of Webmail, Pine still is the only option for Klugman for everything except downloading attachments. \n"I think Webmail is pretty cumbersome to use," he said. "I don't particularly like the idea of relying on Webmail. Pine is quicker to respond to my commands, quicker to load up e-mails."\nJackson said he can sympathize with the students who prefer using Pine. But he said it's just not a financially viable option. \n"Pine is a good client. I like Pine -- it's been around for a long time," Jackson said. "I've heard a few comments from students. They have options. They have quite a few options. We're not telling them they cannot use Pine, just we can't afford to continue having it as a client."\nAlthough Pine will no longer be offered by IU, users can still download the client and install it on their own computers for e-mail access. Instructions for that, as well as popular clients like Outlook Express, Eudora and Exchange are available at http://kb.indiana.edu.\nAnd, users can log onto http://mas.iu.edu and fill out a survey which will extend personal access to the Pine systems until June 1, 2005. But, after that, UITS will permanently, in the words of Shakespeare, "take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing end them."\n-- Contact staff writer Gavin Lesnick at glesnick@indiana.edu.