Yet Another Exchange Killer?

jmertic writes "SuSE Linux now has the latest Exchange killer, but this time for Exchange Server. Openexchange Server is designed to be a drop in replacement for Exchange 5.5 users who don't want to pay the MS tax of going to Exchange 2000. They say it will be available mid November."

Comments

Not.

[Telastyn]

This is *not* a drop in replacement for an exchange server. This does look like a nicely packaged set of servers to replace the functionality, with optional arm&leg support contracts.

woo.hoo.

I mean, yeah professional support is a great thing that will get a little bit into companies, but seriously, nobody is going to rip out an exchange server, dispite its distatefulness; then reconfigure every client to use smtp-auth/imap/ldap not to mention *loose* outlook's calendaring feature, just for clientside flexibility that they never wanted in the first place?

Re:Not.

[BrookHarty]

This type of drop in replacement is the equivalent of dropping in a v8 hemi engine in my VW Bug.

A real drop in replacement, the end user wouldnt even know about back end changes.

Re:Not.

[alsta]

MAPI is a transport mechanism that Outlook and Exchange both use. Exchange functionality could be duplicated but I am not so sure the way you suggest is the best way of doing it.

First of all, Outlook talks MAPI. Period. You need to understand MAPI to talk to Outlook. Then about half of your troubles are solved. Outlook and Exchange do not use the iCalendar protocol for calendaring. Just because that's a protocol defined in an RFC doesn't mean Outlook uses it. Think about it. Why in the world would Microsoft do that? They would lose money to whoever writes the better Exchange server. No, what's needed here is a samba-type approach. If one really needs iCalendar, one would have to write fudge layer between iCalendar and whatever Exchange and Outlook speak.

POP is out of the question. IMAP retains much of the functionality that Outlook has when managing mailboxes, but IMAP doesn't use MAPI. In which case there would be a need for a kludgy layer between IMAP and MAPI to make it all work.

I think it would be easier to try to replicate that which Exchange does with Outlook and vice versa. The issue here though is that we're so far astrayed from standards that they're not even applicable anymore. What is the goal? To maintain an open standard or try to play catchup with Microsoft? Both?

Also, what kind of enhancements were you talking about?

Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

Wouldnt it be awesome if this was integrated with Evolution to give the open-source market a firm footing in the messaging arena

OSS == non oringal names

[Jonny Ringo]

Why is the root name copied in all open source software of the proprietary version in which it competes? Its unimaginative, it often cause problems legally, it sounds like a runner up solution instead of something possibly better.

Thoughts?

Exchange killer or not.

[Anonymous Coward]

Would that this were an Exchange killer. It is not. The SuSe material says you can 'sync' your Outlook with it, just like your PDA. Ooooo!

Calendar, Task Requests, Free/Busy? I wish.

Like it or not, Outlook users in corporate mode use a lot of exchange _server_ features. Outlook (and Express) users that use it in POP/IMAP mode exclusively could care less. Maybe this is an Exchange killer for POP/IMAP users, but so is Cyrus.

This is no 'drop in' replacement; its not any kind of a replacement in unless a lot of drugs are added.

Am I saying its no good? No; we haven't seen it yet. It's not an Exchange replacement. It looks like Bynari.

Interesting use of "Open"

[rgmoore]

Unfortunately, it doesn't sound as though the "Open" in "Openexchange" means that it's going to be open-source. SUSE mentions that they have a much friendlier licensing policy than MS, only paying for people who are actually connected to the server instead of per seat that can connect. That's nice, but it just means that you're getting hooked into a proprietary system that's likely to be less well developed and possibly even less reliable than Exchange, without any of the advantages of Free/Open Source software. Very disappointing.

Re:MS Tax?

[pmineiro]

why don't you people stop making like you're being forced to buy more from Microsoft? The only real taxes are those collected by the government with guns to back them up.

well, all the time i order machines that i intend to install linux on from vendor X, and i say, "i don't want windows installed on the machine, and i don't want to pay for a windows license". however, thanks to microsoft's bulk licensing approach with vendors, this is not possible.

no guns, but i am forced to buy what i don't want, and put $60 in the coffers of a company i don't like.

now, one could say that exchange is a totally optional product, and that one is not forced to buy it, so the concept of "M$ tax" doesn't apply to this case. fair enough. however it does apply to some cases, and is a valid term.

-- p

Obvioulsy you've never used Exchange

[Brigadier]

Typical Scenerio.

User: I want to be able to share my schedule contacts and project info.

admin: sure we can install exchange it will cost $$$$$$, ohh yea it also runs on Win2k.

user: wtf? are you nuts. aren't our win2k servers the ones that all went down because of that mimlinda, in lisa and melissa and code red, .. is there anything else that will let me use ms office and its nifty features such a schedule sharing and such.

admin: well errr , lets see .. aaahh. no ..

moral, SuSE (my distro of choice) is giving users an option to MS that will not be as much of a bite in the butt. ohh yea it runs on linux.

ps. I dont give a damn about the spelling errors

Re:Obvioulsy you've never used Exchange

[Crispin Cowan]

You wish. For that matter, I wish, but it just isn't so. More likely scenario:

• User: I want to be able to share my schedule contacts and project info.
• admin: sure we can install exchange it will cost $$$$$$, ohh yea it also runs on Win2k.
• User: Fine, whatever, just tell me when it's done and don't bug me with details.
• admin: what about all of that mimlinda, in lisa and melissa and code red stuff?
• User: Which part of 'don't bug me with details' was unclear? Just do it.

The open source/free software world desperately needs a drop-in replacement for Exchange, where "drop-in" means "will work with Outlook without having to explain stuff to Outlook users." There are open source functional replacements, and there are proprietary drop-in replacements, but no open source drop-in replacements.

For that matter, we could use an open source drop-in replacement for Outlook, where "drop-in" means "works with Exchange." I've heard that Evolution does it, but I've also heard that Evolution employs a proprietary module to get to the Exchange Calendaring functionality.

If I'm wrong here, I'd love to be corrected. Preferably with URLs pointing to code :-)

Crispin
----
Crispin Cowan, Ph.D.
Chief Scientist, WireX Communications, Inc.
Immunix: Security Hardened Linux Distribution
Available for purchase

Re:Obvioulsy you've never used Exchange

[Billly Gates]

Whats wrong with Novell Groupwise?

I admit I am not an administrator but I interned at a company who was an all Groupwise Novell shop. They mentioned to me that exchange sucked, was not stable, expensive and was a burden to administer. Of course this was in 1999 so things may have changed in more recent versions of exchange.

Are IT managers really still niave in the old thinking that nobody ever got fired for buying microsoft? I thought they learned their lesson with the NT crazy of the late 90's. I know many companies are switching to linux or back to unix for the their core mission critical servers and keeping NT around on the low-mid end. Motorolla tried the NT switch a few years ago and everything blew up. They switched back to unix and left only the small things to NT.

If Novell is still an option then why is everyone complaining about exchange?

What about Outlook and Calendaring?!

[nvrrobx]

If it doesn't support Outlook and the way it handles calendaring and such as smoothly as Exchange does, it will never be an Exchange Server killer!

I know I'm not the first, nor will I be the last person to make this observation.

Not likely.

[amokk]

Yet Another Exchange Killer?

This implies that there has already been an exchange killer. As should be blatantly obvious to everyone involved, this is hardly the case.

Hardly a replacement....

[Unnamed Source]

when it would cost me just as much as Exchange and doesn't provide all the functionality.

I know I'm going to unpopular for saying this...

[Anonymous Coward]

But i'm seeing a lot of people complain that SuSE is charging for this "Exchange killer". It's taken MS litterally hundres of thousands of man hours to develop Exchange. I'm sure the developers at SuSE have put in at least some effort into developing their clone. Do you really expect either of them to give it away for free?!? When I go to buy TV I don't consider what I pay the Sony tax. And When I buy a car I don't consider the price of that the Honda tax. I want to use something people have worked very hard to create. I'm buying a product. This costs money. Deal with it.

...not an exchange killer without Active Directory

[Anonymous Coward]

Active Directory, despite its complexities, is really what makes Exchange a necessity for your MS power users and executives.

Until Exchange 2000, and open source Exchange "killer", OutlookXP, Linux exchange clients can coexist within the same Active Directory infrastructure, there won't be a true Exchange "killer". I think we'll just have to wait until the Samba team can assist us with that.

And I hate to be pessemistic, but Microsoft seems to be staying ahead in this game with their new "Titanium" Exchange.

Why all this playing catch up?

[miffo.swe]

Sure i can understand that there are needs for interopability with MS software but still. Why not develop an open standard and then work from that? With all the brilliant developers currently working on various linux projects all that is needed to work in the same direction would be an open standard for calendars and syncing. Its not brain surgery so it should be fairly easy to whip up a standard for it.

We are now inline with MS and has the chance to run away from them. To embrace their technology is to justify it when we could cevelop better things than they can.

My C++ book is in the mail and im going to start making a difference too. I know i shouldnt be voicing about theese things when i dont do anything by myself so i decided to learn programming and do someting about it. See ya!

This may be a bit off-topic, but..

[Anonymous Coward]

Okay, so we create this open-sourced exchange server replacement.
We also have our own free versions of something similar to Outlook Express.
We have a GUI similar to Windows, and Debian recently announced a fully-graphical install interface. Wow.

Looks like Microsoft are setting the standards these days, allright. :(

And I always thought of *nix as something different, why is everything pointing towards Microsoft?

Re:This may be a bit off-topic, but..

[krmt]

You're being very selective with your "everything" description.

Does Windows have a net-based install that only requires a couple of floppies to get going? Does Windows have a unified scheme where you can pull down whole libraries of software from either a command line, text-based, or full GUI interface? Does Windows have the ability to customize its kernel? Does Windows have tab-based, minimal, and even mouseless GUIs?

Linux offers choice. People are choosing to make programs that are similarly functional to those offered by Microsoft, but that doesn't mean that Windows is setting the standard for everything.

Besides that, there's a lot of crossover. A lot of programs run on both Windows and Linux. Emacs. Vim. Mozilla. Perl. Python. Ruby. Nethack. Windows doesn't set these standards either.

If you still don't believe that Linux is different than Windows, try doing a LFS or Gentoo install. Then come back here and tell me that Windows is setting the standards for everything.

Re:Prediction: It will be available in november..

[Anonymous Coward]

it doesn't look any cheaper than keeping our Exchange 5.5, really, since client licenses are about the same price and OpenExchange Server is really an untested unknown. I don't know ANYbody running it, and Suse is almost unheard of here (BC, Canada) because of its un-redistributable licensing. To be honest, I think the only real advantage here is that the OpenExchange isn't Microsoft.
Why should my company (50 users) migrate? No new features, dubious availability of support (on the other hand MCSE are a dime a dozen here) and inclusion of proprietary software from a relative unknown aren't exactly compelling.