HP's OpenMail: I'm Not Dead Yet

Jon Hill writes "It looks as if HP's OpenMail system is not dead yet and development of the project has been assumed by Samsung's software division. This is great news considering OpenMail was the only serious Unix-based competitor to Microsoft Exchange. Now if only it was strongly marketed and made well known, enterprise administrators such as myself could embrace it." For those of not familiar, essentially OpenMail is the *only* e-mail platform out there, besides Exchange that will support a whole slew of Microsoft Outlook features - something necessary in the enterprise, despite that people should know better.

Comments

Re:Outlook but not exchange?

[killmenow]

We use OpenMail. I read about the discontinuing development last February with much sadness.

When I heard about the deal with Samsung a few weeks ago (we got a letter), I was pleased. I had already read what Bruce Perens had said about open sourcing it...it just wasn't going to happen. He would've like it to (as would I) but there was too much code licensed from third parties, etc. that would have to be re-written before it could be open-sourced, and the whole point was: they weren't developing it anymore.

At any rate, when I came on board at my present employer, the front end client (Outlook) was deeply embedded into the environment here. I am still working on weening people off of it. But the great thing about OpenMail is that I can let them keep Outlook if they want. Believe it or not, when dealt with properly, Outlook is not so bad. The end-users love it. They really don't know and don't care what happens behind the scenes.

OpenMail gives me the flexibility to use any IMAP/LDAP client I want, or the web interface if I so choose, or Outlook. It lets the Outlook users have a system directory, shared folders, and shared calendars...all nice features...without buying into Exchange. It also lets me control what the Outlook users can do. Every time they connect to the server, I can send them a MOTD, reset their security settings to my way, and force all incoming/outgoing mail to be plain text if I so please. I can limit the size of their mailboxes, and I can set up gateways to just about every other type of messaging system I want. I can scan for viruses in attachments at the server and force Outlook to block all attachments of an executable type...whether the server detects a virus or not.

As for the administrative tools, the command line tools are the bomb, but take some getting used to...and the GUI admin client basically sucks.

Overall, I love OpenMail and was glad to pay for the licenses. We have about 100 users hitting the server via Outlook, Netscape Mail, the Web interface, and we even have a whole department with old DOS PCs, accessing their mail via a packet driver and PC-PINE!!! (They refuse to upgrade because it works for them and as the adage goes...if it ain't broke, don't fix it.)

Re:What is this slew you speak of?

[sql*kitten]

Can somebody tell me what these features are, compared to what you'd get with sendmail/qmail / some-random-pop/imap-client ?

Well, for example, if I want to schedule a meeting, I can invite all the people I want via Outlook/Exchange, and it will check their calendars to see if they're free, and if they are, send them a message that when it is opened will automatically fill in their calendars for them, if they say they do want to come. That's just a simple example. The reason all these macro virii can be written at all is that Outlook/Exchange isn't really an email solution per se: it's intended to be a platform for building groupware / workflow / directory applications on, so it's all very scriptable. Shared folders, contacts, task lists and diaries are wonderfully useful in an office where people move around a lot and can be hard to get hold of in person. And all this ties into project management software (MS Project) for really serious tracking.

Email's the easy bit, and you can't compete with sendmail+popper+imapd if that's all you need, because they're free and easy to use. Exchange, like Lotus Notes, is sold on value-add. Just think of Notes as document management with messaging functionality, and Exchange as messaging with document management functionality.

Killer Feature = Shared Calendaring

[EricLivingston]

We have a small company of about 8 people and while our Web site is BSD and our time tracking system is Linux, I've recently had to bring up a Win2k Server box with Exchange 2000 for the SOLE purpose of being able to do group calendaring - that is, the ability to:

• Create a new meeting
• Bring up a list of employees and check their schedule availability
• Schedule the meeting for an open slot on everyone's calendar
• Invite all the participants through an email
• Have those invitees respond to the mail by accepting or declining the meeting
• Have their responses automatically tallied by the server, allowing me to log in and check on the invite status at any time
• Move and/or cancel the meeting, with automatic update emails sent to all participants which will update their own calendars at the push of a button

I researched for days looking for a Linux/BSD based Open-source solution for this functionality, and I didn't find anything even remotely close. I tried to get OpenMail, but HP has shut down the download area so you can't get it anymore. Products like Evolution are slick and have a good email interface, but are single-user only calendaring systems, with no (automated) group coordination at all. Frankly, I find this type of functionality critical in a company of even 8 employees: I just don't see how companies can get along without some kind of group calendaring solution.

This is definately a major gap in the overall functionality of Open Source software in general, which is one reason why Exchange/HP OpenMail/Lotus Notes will continue to thrive.

Hee.

[M-2]

I work for a Very Large Organization that uses Openmail in parts of itself, and Exchange in others. When HP announced they were knifing Openmail, this gave some people the excuse to start planning the switchover.

So, now it's not being knifed. I made sure to get this information to my boss, who is going to pass it on to other people today, to read, review, and spit bile over, because now the reason for their pet project going through is negated. And it means we're not going over to Exchange, which is, pretty much, a good thing overall, even if having two different email systems between the parts of the corporation that merged together is a Really Not Very Good Thing.

I love the sound of an entire Fortune 10 corporation's IT management and planning group having a collective stroke, especially when I gave the information that causes the stroke. It really makes my mornings worth it some days.