What evidence is there that google will ever stop supporting IMAP? What makes you think another provider is not going to stop supporting IMAP, or stop existing at all? What's so hard about switching providers if google does drop IMAP, particularly if you're using your own domain?
Well, you get to choose your mail client independently of your mail provider.
>What evidence is there that google will ever stop supporting IMAP
I have no solid evidence, of course, but the fact that they've disabled xmmp support on gtalk, to me points at a google attempting to become more of an apple or facebook-style 'walled garden'
(and all along, well, google makes money off showing you ads; if you check mail via IMAP, you aren't reading those ads)
>What's so hard about switching providers if google does drop IMAP, particularly if you're using your own domain?
If you are using IMAP to check your mail, and have your own domain, this isn't hard at all.
My view is that being a mass market IMAP provider wouldn't make all that much sense unless google did turn off IMAP, or unless google otherwise started screwing things up (things, I mean, besides the UI)
However... it's easier to do something if you've been doing it for a while, you know? I haven't seriously sysadmin'd a mailserver for anything but my own company in... almost a decade now. It would take me some time to get up to speed. So yes, if I want to be in a position to swoop in if google disables IMAP, I should probably start now.
What evidence is there that google will ever stop supporting IMAP? What makes you think another provider is not going to stop supporting IMAP, or stop existing at all? What's so hard about switching providers if google does drop IMAP, particularly if you're using your own domain?