Can We Finally Ditch Exchange?

bhsx asks: "With all the innovations going into open source software these days, why do I still need to run Exchange to meet my clients' needs? Even when demonstrating technology like LTSP mixed with any combination of OpenOffice, Star Office, even Codeweaver's Crossover Office running the latest Microsoft suite, the clincher is always over Exchange functionality. I'm aware of Bynari's InsightServer(Coincidentally, I noticed on that page, that their code is for sale) and have started using that as a possible closer, and the cost is much less prohibitive than eXchange+w2k server+CALs; but why isn't there an open source solution to this problem yet?"

"With new releases on the way, like Mandrake 9.0 and the new Lycoris can we who try to use Free Software in business environments hope for any change? Do the commercial Linux distros have any plans to implement a free replacement for Exchange, including a Win32 client-side bridge? If not, why not? Do you feel it is too cost prohibitive to imitate Bynari in this case, or is it a decision more along the lines of 'we'd rather you used Evolution and Mandrake/Lycoris/Whatever, rather than OutLook and Win32'? If it's the latter I'd be severely disappointed, and I don't think I'm alone. Any discussion on this topic would be appreciated; but what I'd really love is a community push to get this done. Perhaps a running Web-A-Thon to raise the money to simply purchase the technology from Bynari? I personally think it would be a great move towards grabbing market share from some of the other distributions, some of which have the technology but choose to keep it closed, as well as from the Great Dragon. What do you think?"

Comments

Re:I'm working on one

[unicron]

Translation: "Me and a bunch of people got drunk, thought we could code, submitted the idea and produced a fancy web page. It's now two years later and the project has no files to download and is STILL on Stage 1, Planning."

Re:I feel your pain.

[justanetgod]

You can't admin an exchange server... Even the developers who worked on it stodd back as it was first run and held their breath. The first comment reportedly was "God help us all it lives!"

Alternative to "massive compensation"

[devphil]

They sign contacts that make people have it fixed within a specific time period or they recieve massive compensation.

I work as sysadmin on an Air Force base. We have a commercial support contract with Sun that specifies they get replacement parts to us in 4 hours. The other day a hard drive died, and I had the amusement of writing in the support request, "I know where Sun's headquarters are; get me a new hard drive in 4 hours or I call in an airstrike."

(Then I thought some more about it and erased that sentence. Damn humorless paper-pushers. (So of course it took six hours for the drive to get to me.) Oh well.)

Re:Clincher?

[pmz]

This is not trying to be a troll, but it seems there is always one more "clincher" in the movement away from MS products. IE / Office / Outlook / Photoshop you name it, but now it is Exchange.

This goes both ways, and it is a matter of what people are used to. Whenever I use Windows I think:

Where's Bourne shell???
Where's vi, sed, and egrep???
Where's UFS and NFS???
What happened to root's ability to do anything worthwhile???
How do I get GUI applications to display over the network???
How do I read a PostScript file???

I know that many of these things can be done on Windows eventually, but there is always one more thing I can't do on Windows that I'm used to doing in UNIX.

Re:No, and to the Wannabe's, Put up or Shut up

[ryanvm]

The reason that Exchange/Outlook are #1, is because they do the most things that people want done, more OFTEN and naturally than its competition.

Bullshit. Exchange is #1 because Office (and hence Outlook) is #1. Nothing else.

The only thing difficult about making an Exchange replacement is the technical (and legal) difficulty of deciphering MS' proprietary protocols. If the Justice Department made MS disclose that interface you'd see Exchange's marketshare drop overnight.

Hell, I remember when Lotus Notes installs had to cross their fingers every time they sent an attachment.

Hmmm, I remember when MS shops had to reboot their Exchange servers nightly to avoid lockups. Oh wait, people still have to do that.

Re:I (don't) feel your pain.

[Hektor_Troy]

I'm not ENTIRELY going to agree with the "easy to set up". Silly me wanted to grant access to certain newsgroups via the server and I must have done something wrong, because it tried to download the entire feed from news.wol.dk which is some 21+ thousand groups ...

How do you delete 21+ thousand groups from the server then? ONE BY ONE!!! You cannot select more than one group to manipulate.

ARGH!!!!!

[space] [delete] [y] [space] [delete] [y] [space] [delete] [y] ... 21+ thousand times ...

I killed a keyboard that weekend ...