Below you can get an overview of the next stages as they are currently planned
(Since estimates on the timing are always wrong, I don't bother with that):

Beam 1.2 is currently planned to contain the following functionality:

• Online user-documentation

  The (HTML-based) documentation will document the usage of Beam as well as contain a development-howto.

• Localization support

  Making it possible to translate Beam into different languages (as already available on Zeta).

• Separation of mail-transport

  Beam's mail-transport will be moved out into a separate mail-daemon, allowing better cooperation with MDR.

Beam 1.3 is currently planned to contain the following functionality:

• Improved support for viewing HTML-mail

  It will be possible to view the HTML as formatted plain text (with the tags removed) or use Netpositive as viewer (without compromising privacy).

• Improved mailing-list support with automatic threading

  It will be possible to tell Beam what mailing-lists you are subscribed to.

  Threading is a special sorting mode in the mailref-listview that groups mails hierarchically, based on messageIDs, subjects and date parsing.

• Virtual folders, like in Postmaster and Scooby, with a Prefs-Page to set them up.
• Advanced message-searches

  This will be similar to virtual folders, but with searches you will be able to do things that the attribute-based virtual folders can't (you can search through the mail-body, for instance). Due to this fact, searches will probably be a lot slower than virtual folders.

  Once a search has been defined, it will show up in the folderview as a search-folder with all the matching mails underneath.

  Since searches can be much slower than BeOS-queries, they will not start automatically, but only upon explicit request.

  Searches can be made persistent, in that case they will show up in the folderview next time Beam is started (while temporary searches will be gone).

After that, there is much more to do, but I am not sure in which order I should proceed:

• Decent IMAP support
• Secure mail-content by means of GnuPrivacyGuard

If you want to express your view on the future of Beam, please do!