The Yahoo! Mail Beta was released earlier this week to a select group of users. The screenshots are proving very convincing that Yahoo! may have Google by the balls. It seems as though the interface, which requires no extra browser plugins to run, will make Thunderbird and Outlook users at home. You can read more about it on Alice Hill's Real Tech News website.
Yahoo! Mail Beta is a web-based email application that combines the rich, responsive interface of a desktop program with the available-from-anywhere convenience of your existing Yahoo! Mail account. The tabs are there for you to read or compose on a message but still have the ability to get back to your inbox and other messages in case you need some information from your mailbox. It works using Dynamic HTML, XML and SOAP, technologies built right into the browser. You don't need Java or any plug-ins at all. There's no download and you can still access your account from anywhere.