Will Evolution Exchange Microsoft?

Anonymous Howard writes "Infoanarchy has a comprehensive review of Ximian Evolution. The reviewer claims that the Windows/Outlook combination is inherently inferior in terms of security, because users have too many privileges on the host system. Also, Evolution's indexing appears to be quite well scalable."

Comments

Open protocols are even more important

[DocSnyder]

Both at work and at home, Evolution is my primary email and PIM software. It is a really good idea for Ximian to provide a plugin capable of talking to a Microsoft Exchange server through its proprietary interfaces.

Yet a much more important issue is the other direction - open and freely accessible groupware protocols implemented by a free-as-in-speech server solution, with Outlook connectivity provided by a Windoze plugin. For example, the Bill Workgroup Server takes this approach.

Microsoft Exchange is not the only major proprietary groupware solution - Lotus Notes is here to stay, to be even more proprietary - it's quite impossible to read or write Lotus NSF files with anything but Lotus software. Free groupware standards exist and should be used by anyone. The user should have free choice between PHPgroupware, Evolution, Outlook and Lotus Notes, similar to IMAP providing choice between lots of different email clients.

Huge blind spot in OSS collaboration offerings

[EricLivingston]

This review does point out a huge blind spot in OSS with regard to group collaboration: the lack of an OSS Exchange equivalent server. I was initially excited about the review, because I hoped that it might reveal such a holy grail, but alas, no. As soon as he started talking about group calendaring, it quickly devolved into "Pay $70 for this closed-source connector (per user) to connect to Exchange" which, of course, running on top of W2K server, would cost major bucks (I think a minimum 5-seat W2K Server is $800, then add Exchange, etc).

And, of course, cost aside, this also implies that a shop with microsoft-free aspirations currently has to buckle under and purchase at least one Windows server/exchange combo, plus hire or contract the skill to administer the beast. This is exactly what happened to my small company recently. We were going to go Linux (and in fact our Web site and time tracking server were Linux-based), but being a "virtual" company, with everyone working out of our homes, we required strong group collaboration. So, reluctantly, in came the W2K Server box running nothing but Exchange. If only there were a Linux-based option (even if it weren't OSS!). And yes, we looked at Notes, but I don't even want to go there... Of course there used to be OpenMail by HP (I think) but that's been sold off, is unavailable, and we can only wait and see where that goes (and, regardless, it won't be OSS).

Now that a polished, capable client exists, it would be fantastic to complete the offering with a server.

Ximian to MS: I want to be just like you

[mike_sucks]

"Am I the only person that wonders why MS hasn't sued the crap out of Ximian yet?"

Sort of. I don't know why MS hasn't sued them, but I'm more curious as to why Miguel/Ximian insists on copying *everything* MS does. I have a strong dislike of Outlook's UI, and so there's no chance I'm going to use Evolution - it looks exactly the same as it's non-free competitor. Yiick!

Gnumeric of course was the first such example. Use a windows-like GTK theme and you'll have trouble telling the difference between it and Excel. Doesn't Gnumeric also use a VB-like scripting language? I know the function library is very similar.

Then there's the whole Mono/.NET thing. C#, the intermediate format, the runtime - it's all a Java clone, but dancing to MS's tune rather than Sun's. Given how the majority of the Free Software / OSS community has shun Java, why are these guys jumping on what is essentially the same bandwagon, albeit one that's shiny new and pink, rather than a more mature one?

ObJavaFreeSoftwareDisclosure: I *am* a free software Java developer, so I guess I am biased here.. but honestly, what gives?

Anyone taking bets on Ximian's next product? An IE clone based on Gecko? A shoddy OS based on Linux? Sendmail with GUI just like Exchange's?

Mike.

Outlook at work, Evolution at home

[truthsearch]

I use Outlook at work... because I have to. Ok, so I could get a job at a place that doesn't use Windows, but I'm trying to get the ignorant to open their eyes and migrate. I'll save that story for another time...

But I've been using Outlook at work for years, including all of its "advanced" features like custom forms. I've been using Evolution at home for maybe 6 months. I deal with up to 100 emails a day at work and I have to say Outlook's scalability absolutely sucks. To keep it running at any reasonable speed, I let it "auto-archive". When my local mail box was about 85mb, the client was just too slow. Searches could take 3 or 4 minutes (on a fast machine). And the custom forms are horrible. I'll never use them again. We also tried importing a few thousand contacts through Outlook (to Exchange), but beyond maybe 100 for a single Outlook user, it grinds to a screeching hault.

It may sound silly, but my favorite feature of Evolution that's not in Outlook (97 at least) is the discussion threaded e-mail view. On a mailing list, for example, I can see a tree of the conversation and read it in conversation order rather than date. It's such a little thing, but that's really handy. With that, it's nice, easy configuration, it's speed, and all the other great features others are posting about, overall I prefer Evolution.

One other thing about it that relates to every Windows and KDE/GNOME app: Linux desktops are multi-threaded properly so windows will never freeze with an app and the desktop won't freeze unless the destop app itself has a problem. If Outlook freezes, well I've got to see that frozen windows until if and when I can "end task" and all of the other apps run slowly around it, when the desktop doesn't feel like freezing also. When connected to a big e-mail server, proper multi-threading is a great feature for the client to have.