Mozilla Thunderbird for Android is now available in beta, built upon the K-9 Mail app.
The beta includes core email features like account setup, email organization, and notifications, with feedback encouraged from users.
Thunderbird for Android will remain a separate app from K-9 Mail, requiring users to migrate if they previously used K-9.
They have said that they will continue to release identical versions of each in the immediate future.
Cool, that seems like the best way to handle this.