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: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.