![]() “I had no install hassles even though at the time I was still pretty much of a Linux newbie,” he says. He says the move saved $1800 above Communigate Pro’s cost that he would have had to spend on licensing fees to upgrade from NT Server and TTS’s old version of Exchange for their 15 seats, plus the switch removed the need for a $700 backup system designed for Exchange that Frank says caused so much trouble he’d “be back in the server room for three or four hours after every Exchange server crash.”įrank had no trouble moving to Communigate Pro. So we must accept Outlook on at least some coworkers’ desktops as a reality for the time being, and deal with it as best we can.įrank Maestan of TTS Performance Systems has been serving his small company’s Outlook desktops with Communigate Pro since June 2001. Sadly, many marketing-susceptible desktop computer users will resist this action even if the Outlook replacement they are offered is easier to use, and the servers behind it cost less to purchase and maintain than Exchange. And, of course, as Communigate Pro and other groupware programs move beyond Outlook’s user-level feature set, the simplest solution - in a technical sense - will be to simply move users away from Outlook. There’s an open source project called Outport working on the problem of making Outlook interface with the rest of the world, which may help take care of that problem. There seems to be only one major groupware client that will not soon support iCal as its default. They will be able to use others’ computers - in Internet cafes or wherever - to access their Outlook-alike functions through whatever Web browser is available, even a browser running on a handheld device. In fact, they won’t even need their own computer. He says that when 4.1 is available, users will no longer need Outlook to get Outlook-like functionality. Slater says Communigate Pro 4.1 (now under development) will support iCal/vCal standards. It has been an evolving standard that is only now stabilizing enough that Stalker and other commercial groupware vendors (and enterprise-conscious free software developers) are starting to incorporate it into their server software in a big way. It is also used by the (open source) Mozilla Calendar and many others. The iCal standard has been exploited heavily by Apple, who has made very pretty use of it. The reality for commercial Exchange competitors (and presumably for non-commercial ones that would like to make their mark in the world) is that Outlook and Outlook Express dominate the email/groupware client marketplace so heavily that hardly any company is going to install email/groupware server software right now that doesn’t work with Microsoft’s desktop programs, even if they must make a devil’s bargain to give up support for other email clients in return for full Outlook compatibility. Even Exchange alternatives that fully support Outlook and Outlook Express functions have trouble with other clients - especially those you may find on a Linux desktop. The problem Communigate Pro and other Exchange competitors have is not with email, but is with collaboration (groupware) and calendaring functions, especially if they want to make them work on multiple platforms. According to Stalker spokesperson Philip Slater, it supports “any POP or IMAP client on the market. Stalker Software’s Communigate Pro is an increasingly popular corporate email/groupware alternative to Microsoft’s Exchange Server.
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