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?

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

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

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.

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.