I would not call the Mail Connector "nice" or "main".  I would call it powerful.  I would say it is a feature that has the potential of opening up several more abilities.

For those that don't know, the mail connector feature monitors the inbox of an email address. When it finds a new email it converts the email into a forum post.  I was working on tweaking it to allow my site visitors to post to the forums using their cell phones (text message sent to email address).  I think one of the reasons it hasn't been explored, tweaked, mashed-up, etc. by more people is that it was a feature only available in the Enterprise addition of Active Forums.

While the Enterprise version of Active Forums was a step up in price and therefore some elected not to afford it, if it is now going to be part of PE only it will be out of reach of the majority of DNN users.  If it truly will be PE only I guess the best solution, however painful it may be, will be to bite the bullet, trash whatever investment you might have in Mail Connector, and start looking for a replacement.

I know Mike at DigNuke has been working on an iphone app that will work with DigArticle.  This could be a replacement.  I had also found a way to do the above using Posterous - which might be the best time investment as it will probably be out of reach for DNN Corp to purchase and therefore a much safer investment.  The third party module route in DNN is looking less and less attractive.

 
Yes, this is great news for the Community Edition AND PE and ENT....  all offerings suddenly got a lot more valuable for no extra charge.

The only group that got a raw deal are existing ActiveModule Enterpise customers who can't afford PE or ENT. Everyone else is doing back-flips....

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Entrepreneur

PokerDIY Tournament Manager - PokerDIY Tournament Manager<
PokerDIY Game Finder - Mobile Apps powered by DNN
PokerDIY - Connecting Poker Players

 
It's events like this that really proves the value of open source. I have been working with web systems professionally since the mid 90's. In the years that have passed I have seen every commercial CMS product I have ever worked with disappear from the market, leaving many of their customers hanging. Companies merge, get bought, goes bankrupt, change focus or just disappear from the surface of the earth. When you choose to use commercial products you will need to ensure that the site will provide the cashflow to deal with disruptive events like this.These are the risks with using commercial products.

DotNetNuke corporation is just one board meeting away from changing the entire ecosystem. This happens all the time. All we have are promises, our trust in the corporation, and the open source license. The only asset thats really worth someting, is the open source license. Thats a solid protection against future events. Those who choose to stack their site with closed source binaries, like Snowcovered modules or PE, will need to take these risks into account. Sometimes, it makes sense, sometimes it does not. It's all in the numbers.

This last event makes DNN CE better. My confidence in the corporations commitment to the open source and open core strategy has been strengthened.