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

Prediction: It will be available in november..

[mindstrm]

with POP3 functionality.

Everything else will be "Planned for the future" and they will be recruiting programmers.

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

[zurab]

with POP3 functionality.

Everything else will be "Planned for the future" and they will be recruiting programmers.

C'mon now! They even state on the features page that The preferred protocol is IMAP.
Why predict when you can read and find out?
Features page says it will come with SMTP, Webmail, IMAP, LDAP, spam filter, Samba PDC, and DHCP. The features include E-mail (of course), scheduler, document management, project management, addressbooks, forums, knowledgebase, etc., etc., etc..

Not that you can't piece these software packages yourself, but this sounds like it will be an integrated solution for mail server like Exchange or Groupwise servers, integrated IMAP and web interface; basically they want people to have OpenExchange server interoperate with MS Exchange server (migrating period), and after you're sure everything is set up correctly as you want it then ditch the MS Exchange completely. All this will be configurable through YaST too.

To me it sounds very nice as an alternative and way cheaper too.

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

[Anonymous Coward]

Will SuSE release this as an Open Source package that can be built on other platforms than their Linux? This YaST tool of which you speak is not Open Source.

If it won't be Open Source, all I have to say is OpenMail, or Samsung Contact as it is referred to now.

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.

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

[Anonymous Coward]

SuSE is a European (German) company. They have done a lot of good work for Linux. Of course they are commercial. The recognize that to survive they need to sell.
Who cares that nobody in BC, Canada has heard of them? Maybe they do care themselves, they could be able to expand their market. I don't care, I have used their products for years.

Re:MS Tax?

[kingofnopants]

the "tax" refers to the cost that microsoft charges you to upgrade. you usually have to upgrade or else the obsolete software is practically unusable.

Will It Work As A Drop-in For 5.0?

[The Turd Report]

I get customers who have '5.0', it is an open relay by default and can not be secured, who get hijacked by spammers. The only way for them to secure their server is to buy '5.5'. The subject line has my question. Anyone know?

Yupp gotta have this topic every single week

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course so far it aint happening but like President Bush has tought the nation just repeat
your lies long enough and some people believe that they are the truth.

Its a drop in replacement, with groupware featured supplied by a different third party
seperate from email.

So far I have not seen any mention in this product of automatic migrating of all user content?

Im my opinion a 'drop in' replacement would have the ability to migrate all user content from existing infrastructure into the new infrastructure.

What this is a dang expensive hodge podge of
technology, whos features, can somewhat match what Exchange has but not with the same integration and user interface tools .

In the article I read earlier they basically even admit that yes you can probably cobble together this stuff yourself a lot cheaper.

So instead of going with Exhcange, and not have to have a painfull transistion, retraining your thousands of users, etc, you go out pay half or a bit more than for upgrading Exchange, sell your soul to a version 1.0, dont know if we will survive solution, which will probably not feature any migration possiblities, if in fact there is no version 2.0

Either go full opensource, or just choose one of the established players in this field, at least if you have a sizeable number of users.

Re:Yupp gotta have this topic every single week

[LarsG]

Im my opinion a 'drop in' replacement would have the ability to migrate all user content from existing infrastructure into the new infrastructure.

Why did someone moderate the above as a troll? Admittedly, his message is harsh but for a large customer that is currently using Exchange he is correct.

The SuSE solution is not a drop-in replacement. A drop-in replacement would be able to migrate users and data stores (email, calendars, address books, etc) from the Exchange servers to the replacements and would not require any configuration changes on the clients.

I'm sure the SuSE solution provides somewhat equivalent functionality, but it will be a large job to migrate a company that is using Exchange today to SuSE. In the long run you might even save money, but the migration cost (both in time, management, client reconfiguration and user training) will be noticable.

God try, and keep up the good work, SuSE. But please don't market this as a drop-in replacement.

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.

[Arthur Dent]

*loose* outlook's calendaring feature

Uh, Loose outlook's calendaring feature?

Do you mean you don't have to use force to rip it out?

<g>

Re:Not.

[alsta]

I detest MS Exchange for many reasons, but foremost because of MAPI. This package does not have MAPI specified, in which case it is correct of Telastyn to claim that it isn't a drop in replacement package.

MAPI is Outlook's native protocol which encapsulates calls to the Exchange server to retrieve/modify calendars, mailboxes and other objects.

This will probably be a nice mailserver-in-a-box deal and it's nice to see Linux vendors do these things. But to call it a drop in replacement sounds like a lot of hot air. PLEASE do not assume that I am in any way saying that Exchange is better. I am not. I am saying however, that vendors should take care in advertising more correctly. Otherwise they're proving to Exchange users that Exchange is the real deal and whatever is offered by SuSE is a joke.

Re:Not.

[ZoneGray]

True enough, but MAPI is just a protocol. All the Calendar functionality comes from the client and the server. And Outlook retains most of it's functionality (and gets a huge boost in perfomrance) when run in Internet mode.

There's no reason the essential Exchange functionality couldn't be duplicated. Some of the Calendar info is already available in that icalendar format, and the rest could be encapsulated in POP/IMAP. Add some server enhancvements and maybe an Outlook plugin, and you could be pretty close.

And of course, you could distribute the Outlook plugin to the whole enterprise just by sending one attachment to the VP of Marketing.

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?

Re:Not.

[ZoneGray]

Outlook does support some iCal functionality, but only in Internet mode, through the Net Folders option. It's only limited by the fact that not all information is exchanged, and the time delay between updates. When a calendar event arrives in the mailbox, Outlook process it and updates the local calendar. It may use MAPI application calls internally, but the data format isn't proprietary and all the information exchange is done through POP/SMTP.

I've used it that way specifically to avoid going the MAPI/Exchange route. I got to management early and gave 'em basic calendar sharing; once they had that, they couldn't justify the expense of Exchange. Kept the company on pure Internet protocols until we got sold to somebody who converted us to Notes.

A back end server that supported and extended Outlook in that configuration, using standard transport protocols, could be a compelling alternative. Of course, if it ever caught on, Microsoft would drop Net Folders from the Internet version of Outlook pretty quickly.

Re:Not.

[Hafer]

*You* obviously knew the difference. So why bother to force someone to learn English?

Aren't non-native speakers allowed to express their thoughts?

Source code license?

[pope nihil]

I notice that you can get the source code, but under what license?

SuSE Linux Openexchange Server 4

Base license with ten groupware clients and an unlimited number of external e-mail clients (POP3/IMAP)

Order no.: 2118-1INT

US $ 1,249.00

Software
SuSE Linux Openexchange Server 4 (based on SLES 8), source code (4 CDs)

Re:Source code license?

[bogie]

Interesting question, but I'd rather see them do something about Yast. That one piece of software spoils the distro for me. I mean most of the other distros GPL their tools, why can't Suse?

Because of Yast I don't support Suse and never will.

I know I be modded as Troll for this, but I know many other people feel the same way I do. I mean for a company that claims to be so into opensource why have this "gotcha" built into their distro? Could you imagine if Redhat had done the same thing with RPM? Or Debian had did this with Apt?

Suse did invent the tool so they do get to pick the license, but what would happen if the 99% of software written by others which they are repackaging all did the same thing?

Re:Source code license?

[root_42]

I don't understand what the fuzz is all about. Yast is not that great a tool that I would say everyone has to use it. The source code for Yast is there, and you are allowed to modify it as you wish -- with one condition: you have to label this version as a modified Yast-version. So no big deal! Try to focus on what SuSE has done for the OpenSource-community: They fund a lot of the ALSA-project development (Jaroslav Kysela), they heavily pushed the development of XFree86 including writing of drivers for until then unsupported cards, porting Linux to the s390 and much more. They also employ a couple of the KDE core developers (Waldo Bastian et al.).

Re:Source code license?

[Ed Avis]

The restriction on YaST is that you cannot sell 'data carriers' containing the software. So for example you cannot sell CDs with a Linux distribution that contains YaST (SuSE Linux or otherwise). This seems a bit unreasonable from a company that makes its money selling CDs of software mostly written by others.

Still SuSE's policy is that patches to other programs are released under the same licence as the programs themselves, so they do good work in the rest of their distribution. But since YaST is a proprietary SuSE program, I can't really see the point in learning it (since it ties you to SuSE Linux and can never be used by the other distributions under the current licence). Better to support a distribution like Linux-Mandrake which makes sure its admin tools are released as free software.

YMMV, but at least you can appreciate the reasons why some users prefer to stay away from SuSE.

But I've got too much money!

[teamhasnoi]

I've got to spend 30 million dollars in 30 days so I can inheirit 300 million! I can't give any away to charity, and I can't tell anyone why I'm doing it! (shhh.)

MS Exchange is perfect for my needs! I can pick up a 1000 seat licence and a couple of XP Advanced Servers and blow my wad right there! Plus, I can hire a bunch of IT guys to keep up with bugs and patches - ooooh, don't kill Exchange!

Signed, Brewster
(a.k.a Richard Prior)

Re:But I've got too much money!

[caspper69]

Not to be a nit-picker because your comment was funny, but Brewster couldn't buy anything that had equity. Unfortunately, a couple .NET Advanced Servers and Exchange + the hardware to run them would definitely put something in the 'asset' column.

Of course with the rate of depreciation on hardware and software it wouldn't be worth dick soon enough, but not in 30 days!

Re:But I've got too much money!

[LinuxInDallas]

I don't know about you, but the thought of buying all that MS software does not make me want to blow my wad ;)

Re:But I've got too much money!

[Anonymous Coward]

actually if you blow your wad on microsoft software, you won't be hiring real IT personnel for support.

if you are anything like a typical company, you'll spend thousands upon thousands on ms software and licensing...

and about $8/hour for a couple of kids to reboot the servers every so often.

Re:But I've got too much money!

[Eristone]

That's why he'd lease the servers and software from some outfit like Dell. And get the support services from EDS or IBM... net equity: 0.

Re:But I've got too much money!

[Chemical]

Brewster would have had no problems in 1999. Most Dotcoms burnt through way more than $30 million, and have absoultely nothing to show for it. All he would have to do is make sure everything was leased.

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

Re:Wow

[vranash]

If it was actually Open Source, maybe it would.

Open does not Open Source make.

Micro does not Microscopic make (see M$ exe's for demo)

As I've been noticing a lot of recently, many of the new 'Open' products are just that, products with a name made to fool the 'casual' open sourcer into thinking they're getting something that's not proprietary, like M$'s stuff.

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?

Re:OSS == non oringal names

[damiam]

Linux/BSD != Windows
Nautilus/Konqueror != Explorer
Mozilla/Galeon/Phoenix != IE
Evolution != Outlook
Gnumeric != Excel
Blender != Maya
Apache != IIS

The list goes on and on. While some opensource products have names similar to proprietary ones (Abiword, OpenOffice, Lindows), the vast majority don't. For that matter, many proprietary products have names similar to others (WordPerfect Office). Open source projects are not disproportionally guilty of name theft.

Re:OSS == non oringal names

[electroniceric]

I agree with your basic point, though I think you're stating it a bit strongly.
It's a question of brand and market positioning. SuSE is taking the groupware market as the one defined by Microsoft. As such, there's really only one, perhaps two brands in the market (Exchange, and Lotus Notes). If you're a relatively small company, it doesn't pay to take the time and money to build a brand from scratch in this market. The trick is to erode Microsoft's market share by selling a very similar product (read knock-off) and at the same time developing a brand that makes the product seem like its own thing. We'll see whether SuSE, and OSS in general can manage that.
I'd say I'm guardedly optimistic.

Still a tax

[anon757]

So, instead of paying the Microsoft tax, you're paying the SuSe tax?

Re:Still a tax

[anon757]

I know. I like to keep at least as current as /. itself.

Re:Still a tax

[damiam]

Might want to update your sig.

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:Interesting use of "Open"

[Anonymous Coward]

Never mind that you can do it either way with Exchange, which-ever benfits your situation more... But never let it be said that facts get in the way of a good MS diss on /.!

Re:Interesting use of "Open"

[bo-eric]

Taking a look at the "Features" page (of the "Article"), we see that the components Openexchange Server consists of are the following:

• Operating system: SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 8 for ia32, Kernel 2.4.19
• Installation: graphical installation with YaST2
• SMTP mail server, mail transfer agent: Postfix 1.1.11
• IMAP mail delivery agent: Cyrus IMAP 2.1.9
• Web server: Apache 1.3.26
• LDAP server: OpenLDAP 2.1.4
• Integrated spam filter
• Samba PDC
• DHCP

Admittedly, the "Integrated spam filter" and "DHCP" parts are not specified and might be closed source, but that seems quite unlikely, IMHO. Every other component seems to be both open sourced and free. Am I missing the reason you concluded it was closed-source?

Re:Interesting use of "Open"

[celas]

One hint from which we can conclude that some part of it is not software libre/open source is that they can charge a per-seat license fee. They could charge a per-seat support contract fee, but not a per-seat use or instalation fee, unless the software is proprietory.

Your list of libre/open services don't mention any of the calemdering/groupware functions. Nor the web client. Are these functions using proprietory/non-free programs?

Re:Interesting use of "Open"

[addikt10]

Yep - associating itself with such "winners" as "Open" unix and "Open" vms.

Re:Interesting use of "Open"

[derF024]

open source != "free as in beer"

you can charge whatever you want for open source software, as long as you give the user the source code. since most large places with exchange servers list support as a requirement, the software wouldn't be complete if they just downloaded it. it may very well be that you're paying per seat for support.

Re:Interesting use of "Open"

[anonymous loser]

Interesting point. I'm wondering why companies would bother paying $1200 for packages you can get off the shelf for free, many of which are already installed by default for server configurations on several distros.

Since they've got all that other stuff on there, they should throw in IMP as well.

I wonder if the spam filter is SpamAssassin?

Re:Interesting use of "Open"

[daviddennis]

If you run a company that doesn't have a huge number of absentee workers, there should be little difference in practice between the number of people connecting and the number of people who are authorized to connect. As long as you check for mail every few minutes, you're connected, after all.

I'd love to find something to replace Exchange with at my company, but you'd have to dump the per seat licensing entirely for me to be able to get the big boss interested. And it would have to look exactly like Exchange to Outlook (including Outlook forms) and our phone system (which sends voice mails through it).

If anyone knows of a product that compatible, I'd be really interested in seeing it.

D

Re:Interesting use of "Open"

[Isle]

Interesting point. I'm wondering why companies would bother paying $1200 for packages you can get off the shelf for free, many of which are already installed by default for server configurations on several distros.


Security and service. What ordinary managers would trust something a young sys.ad. had just downloaded from the internet?

Something I don't get

[silhouette]

I don't understand why people are always talking about the latest and greatest exchange killer.

There was already an exchange killer. It was called Nimda.

Re:Something I don't get

[wsapplegate]

> There was already an exchange killer. It was called Nimda.

You must be talking about the Nimda IIS worm, don't you ? I don't remember it could attack Exchange servers (although I *do* remember Microsoft issuing a security patch for Exchange that broke the software, generating angry responses on Bugtraq, and then a patch to patch the patch. With vendors like that, you don't need worm writers !). It would be really good for everyone -- and for the signal/noise ratio -- if people could stop posting inexact stuff...

Re:Something I don't get

[silhouette]

It would be really good for everyone -- and for the signal/noise ratio -- if people could stop posting inexact stuff...

To think! - I posted a piece of misleading information on Slashdot! I've contributed to the downfall of an otherwise pure source of factual information. But if I can't post wildly misinformed and inaccurate information that gets modded up to +5, Funny on Slashdot, then..

A) Where can I??
B) The terrorists have already won.
C) The trolls have already won.
D) CowboyNeal has already won.

(Seriously though - yes, it does attack IIS servers, and also propagates itself through mass emailing. No, it doesn't attack exchange servers directly (but probably increases the load). But hey, if I wanted to be factually accurate, it wouldn't have been funny.)

Bugs included?

[bartmank]

Im just wondering if they are including all the "undocumented design features" exchange seems to include.

Yay, is it GPL or BSD?

[Eric Seppanen]

GPL or BSD? Artistic License? MPL?

SuSE Linux Openexchange Server 4
Base license with ten groupware clients and an unlimited number of external e-mail clients (POP3/IMAP)
Order no.: 2118-1INT
US $ 1,249.00

*sob*

Re:Yay, is it GPL or BSD?

[Zeinfeld]

US $ 1,249.00

Yes but you forget that the point of slashtopia is not saving money or even doing things better, it is all about not feeding the beast of Redmond.

After a while this gets somewhat tiresome. Instead of choosing their battles the slashcrew behave like Fox news, making no attempt to hide their bias and mindlessly bashing their opponents for the sake of it.

If I was running Microsoft I would set up a site like slashdot since the core message of Microsoft is identical to that of Microsoft corporate communications, namely "Microsoft is the only company in this industry that counts for anything".

MAPI support?

[TheBracket]

I looked through the site, and could see no sign of native MAPI support - rather, you have the usual collection of IMAP, POP3, SMTP, etc. protocols. Many sites I look after would love to switch to a free Exchange replacement when they phase out their current 5.5 deployments - but if it doesn't support MAPI and seamlessly integrate with Outlook, they won't be interested.

It also seems to be missing a few of Exchange's better features: single instance message storage, (relatively) easy multi-site replication, deleted item retention, just to name a few.

Finally, who on Earth wants to put their Exchange server on their PDC? If this product doesn't integrate well with existing domains, I don't think that I have a single client who could actually use it!

Re:MAPI support?

[Kunta Kinte]

I looked through the site, and could see no sign of native MAPI support - rather, you have the usual collection of IMAP, POP3, SMTP, etc. protocols.

Yeah, those useless IETF standards!

Re:MAPI support?

[Whatever Fits]

MAPI is a client API, not a server one. MAPI compatibility is a way to send/receive email etc. from a client to any given server. It abstracts out the calls to the server for any given client to attach to. A mail client will install a mapi.dll onto the system. If you write another application that wants to send an email, you use the MAPI interface to send an email through that system's default server using that server's protocol. This has nothing to do with the compatibility SuSE's product may or may not have with Outlook. As a drop in replacement it needs to support the communications protocol and command set (basically an extended IMAP, try browsing the server with an IMAP client... kinda fun) that Outlook supports. Again, nothing to do with MAPI. If this product works with Outlook Express (read: POP3 or IMAP) then it has MAPI compatibility as Outlook Express is a MAPI compliant client. I have written many MAPI mail projects. It sucks. I like piping a file through sendmail on any *nix. So bloody easy. It doesn't give me the ability to pick up an email, but I've only done that once in all the times I've used MAPI.

About the other items I don't have a clue except your PDC would be much more stable running on Linux than on Windows.

Re:MAPI support?

[NetNinja]

I'll second that. I would love to replace most of my N.T 4.0 network with Linux boxes. We are tied into a Content Management System (CMS) called Vignette. Although there is an open source CMS called PlainBlack that looks very promising.
The moment a Open source replacement comes out for Exchange, that's the moment I'll start deploying a test box.

Re:MAPI support?

[alsta]

MAPI is used by Exchange and Outlook in a bi-directional fashion. Exchange drives Outlook. Hence it is as much a server API as a client one. The fact that Outlook uses MAPI to talk to other services is a different story.

Your assessment is largely correct, except that Exchange DOES use MAPI. I would have to agree that MAPI is vile though.

Re:MAPI support?

[Helen O'Boyle]

Whatever Fits,

It depends which MAPI you're talking about. Most apps folks know about the client-side functionality in Simple MAPI.

There is another version, called Extended MAPI. This does indeed support many server-side functions, for the creation of "message store providers" and "transport providers" and other such things that are part of the underlying plumbing of Exchange. It's definitely not a client-side-only technology.
--
* Helen *

Re:MAPI support?

[Helen O'Boyle]

AC,

Bzzzt, wrong answer! One more time: MAPI is NOT just a client-side technology.

I will say that server-side MAPI did have lots of brokenness back in its early days (circa mid-90's) -- things like server-side functions which displayed dialog boxes on the server and waited for someone to see them and press "OK" before the server process calling the MAPI function that errored would continue.

The point of MAPI is not just to make it easy for any client to send mail via a "common protocol" (did you mean API?). Another point is that a single client can select WHICH protocol to use, to send mail -- because it was developed back in the days before everyone decided SMTP/POP3/IMAP were the way to go. At least this is true of the versions of MAPI supplied with typical Exchange clients. (I believe Simple MAPI as supplied with vanilla Windows may be limited to God's Intended Email Protocols, SMTP/POP3/IMAP).

And being MAPI-free doesn't mean code is virus free, by any means.
--
* Helen *

Re:MAPI support?

[Helen O'Boyle]

Sorry AC droid,

A "super simple httpd for *BSD"? Why do that, when I've already written a load-balancing one -- a decade ago, kiddo. ;-)

Besides, it'd be stupid to waste my time coding something that's already out there, unless I was doing it as an intellectual exercise to see if I could figure out how to do it. I prefer to write code that folks actually *WANT* -- and yes, in the mid/late 1980's, some of that which paid quite well, involved MAPI.

I first used vi in the early 1980's, wrote a compiler in C in the mid-80's and that load-balancing http server in the mid-90's. Let's see... taught UNIX security in the late-1980's, founded a ISP with a handful of Sparcstations and a T-1, was lead maintainer of the internals of a commercial (read: folks paid for it) RDBMS for a while. I just happen to know how to code well enough to be paid for it, on more than one platform.

There are many women whose technical limits are exceeded when talk goes beyond VB and SQL. I, however, am not one of them.

If you don't want to read any details about MS software, you'd do well to stay away from articles which seek to equivalence other packages to it.

Better luck next troll my friend,
--
* Helen *

Re:MAPI support?

[Helen O'Boyle]

Well, AC,

I think you missed your last dose of ritalin. Go take it. We'll wait. ;-)

I did indeed write a compiler -- for an awful dialect of Pascal (ob /. tech content: I did this on the Pyramid OS-X platform, home of the broken ATT-semantic-based chgrp() syscall that didn't clear the sgid-bit as part of chgrp(), and thus allowed anyone to create a shell setgid to group-of-choice at any time).

As for posting the URL's for code I wrote 8-17 years ago: Not likely, sorry.
--
* Helen *

Re:MAPI support?

[crucini]

OK, so MAPI is an api implemented by mapi.dll. What is the protocol(s) typically used between Outlook and Exchange? Or rather, I guess, between the client-side mapi.dll representing Outlook and the server-side mapi.dll representing Exchange? I'm visualizing:

[Outlook]---[mapi.dll]===[mapi.dll]---[Exchange]

Where '-' is a function call or callback, and '=' is the wire protocol. Is that protocol also called MAPI? Is it serialized objects or is it an extension of IMAP?

I think some people are thrown off the scent by the fact that Outlook and Exchange both support some open protocols as afterthoughts. I know Outlook can do IMAP, but I doubt that that's the typical protocol used in a full Outlook-Exchange implementation, or there wouldn't be much of a proprietary lock.

Re:MAPI support?

[crisco]

So what would it take to write a MAPI adapter for Outlook and another adapter on the server side for one of the IMAP servers commonly available? How much Exchange functionality would this duplicate? What more would be needed to be done to duplicate the rest of the functionality?

Re:MAPI support?

[Bert64]

Clients should be encouraged to move away from lookout anyway, for purely security reasons. Outlook is responsible for inventing the emailvirus, there was no such thing before outlook came around.
Ofcourse, a different client/server combination which integrates just the same, but while providing no breeding ground for viruses would be perfect.

Re:MAPI support?

[Bert64]

So can we see this http server?
Most oldschool unix people i know, laugh at microsoft products.. theyre not used to such a level of instability. We have a SunOS 4.x machine here which has been running non-stop since 1996

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

yo

[hfastedge]

Interesting phenomena at work here: let the company with the $$ develop the product first. Then the open sourceres write it for free in their leisure time and the people that paid for the $$ eventually switch to free. This makes the writers of $$ want to change their product enough so that its either:
a) 100% as difficult to rewrite, but transparent to the users OR
b) defend their licensing in court.

Anyway, this is a very weird cycle. I'd be enlightened if some other enightened minds could suggest some alternative cycles. Maybe there arent any.

-skimpIzu!

Re:yo

[uchian]

In my view :

You could either look at it as the consumerisation (is that a word?) of software, which occurs with pretty much any type of electronic product you could name (digital watches, cd players, VCR's), where the price of the product starts high and then drops when people figure out how to mass produce it cheaply.

Unfortunately, the main reason as to why the price starts out high - that the components are difficult to make in large numbers and become cheaper as time goes by and demand increases - doesn't apply to software because once you've made the first copy, you can mass produce it simply by putting it on the internet or on CD.

And because it is so easy to mass produce, the large companies have to artificially make it more difficult to mass produce, which is why everyone on Slashdot get's so pissed off with them.

The only way this cycle will break is if someone figures out a business model where

a) The programmers write the software and still get paid, and
b) No artificial constraints on what can be done with the software are applied.

Personally, I think that as long as big companies think that they can make a product once and sell it millions of times, (remind you of Douglas Adams' Mostly Harmless?) they are going to keep fighting this losing battle.

The solution, as companies like AOL have figured out, is that the software is a means-to-an-end. They don't try to sell you their software, they sell you their web service. Do most city database companies try and sell a generic e-commerce application, or are they selling the service to customise it to the needs of the client?

And god help the recording industry :-) The service there is to listen to the band's playing live, not in providing CD's.

Consumer software and consumer pre-recorded music are dead end industries, which is why they are fighting using every dirty trick in the book to try and stay alive at the moment.

Well, that's my view on things anyway ;-)

Exchange SuSE

[Rik van Riel]

... so, who's going to print the shirts ? ;)

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

[TedCheshireAcad]

I've run into this many times before with admins who come out of the MCSE mill. Unfortunately, there's no way to get your money back for Exchange/W2K once you've been ass reamed for it.

A good option that I've reccomended and implemented is phpGroupWare, which works really well for a small to medium size office that needs basic collaboration sofware.

Re:Obvioulsy you've never used Exchange

[MyHair]

ps. I dont give a damn about the spelling errors

You spelled "damn" correctly.

Re:Obvioulsy you've never used Exchange

[killmenow]

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

admin who knows a thing or two: Yes.

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?

Re:Obvioulsy you've never used Exchange

[Robber Baron]

I was going to slag you again with another "check out the big brain on Crispin" type comment but this time you're absolutely right. Sure I'd love to see a drop-in for Exchange as well but for me "drop-in" also means "will work with Outlook as a front end". The same goes for a drop-in for Outlook...drop-in means users can switch over with a minimum of training and squeamishness.

Also all these comments about lisa and melissa and code red etc have me scratching my head as well, I mean hasn't anybody heard of virus scanners? I've got Norton Corporate Edition with the Exchange/Outlook plugin and ain't NOTHING getting past it! Shit, you can even configure it to autoupdate itself and push the updates out to the clients when they log in!

Re:Obvioulsy you've never used Exchange

[Anonymous Coward]

Nah, Ximian Connector is just a kludge (a clever one), that uses Outlook Web Access (the web plugin to exchange) as a "behinds-the-scenes" proxy and via WebDav transfers stuff. I would think that it's performance would be greatly limited by this, plus it's limited to whatever OWA supports at any time. Any non-OWA exchange features wouldn't work

Re:Obvioulsy you've never used Exchange

[mikewren420]

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.

Back that anti-M$ /. train up.... Don't get me wrong; I hate M$ as much as the next geek, but Exchange is the only solution (at the time) that fit my client's needs. Period. FWIW, my Exchange server never went offline because of any of the above exploits...

Hey d00d, were you doing *your* job as a diligant admin, to keep your client's Exchange box online? Sounds like we already have the answers. 20 minutes with Norton and a log parser would have found any liability... it sounds like you waited until your client called *you* about a down server, after it's much too late... of course, by that point, you already looked like the lame Exchange wannabe you are.... but it's always much easier to blame M$ and Exchange for this, right?

Re:Obvioulsy you've never used Exchange

[Isle]

Yes, but why use virus scanners, when you can have a safe system instead?

Re:Obvioulsy you've never used Exchange

[samdu]

" * 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."

Actually, I think the last part would be:

Admin: Did I mention it'll cost $$$$$$$
User: How much $$$$$$$
Admin: A LOT of $$$$$$$
User: Isn't there another way?
Admin: Nope.
User: I guess we can wait on collaboration.

Really, the biggest issue with Exchange is its price. It, because MS have a lock on the market, is entirely over priced for what it is and how well it works. Of course, you could go with Notes, but that would necessitate going with something other than Outlook. Fat chance the suits would go for that. OpenMail was choice, but HP couldn't seem to get it off the ground, unfortunately. Currently, I'm evaluating PHPGroupWare. So far so good. I figure that in a month or so, I'll reccommend it to a client and see how it goes.

As for Exchange support. Well, if you call the following (real) exchange (no pun intended) support, then I'll eat my hat. When I worked for a market leading software development company in IT, we upgraded from Exchange 5.0 to 5.5. It locked up at least once a day. After several days of troubleshooting, we burned a support call to Microsoft (not cheap). This is the jist of the call:

Us: Yeah, we just upgraded to Exchange 5.5 and it locks up at least once a day. All other services on the server are fine, but Exchange just stops.

MS Support: Well, have you uninstalled and reinstalled Exchange?

Us: Yeah.

MS: Have you restored the Information Store from a previous backup?

Us: Yeah.

MS: Well, just reboot the server once a day. That's what we do here.

Yeah, THAT's support. We ended up downgrading back to 5.0.

Re:Obvioulsy you've never used Exchange

[maddskillz]

Coming from a place that runs Groupwise (unfortuneatly) I can say Groupwise isn't a great option. I am not sure if it there fault, or Microsofts, but it refuses to cooperate with windows and office.
Now, granted, we only have Groupwise 5.5, butwe are phasing out Novell, so we can't see the point in upgrading.
Some examples of the problems? Install office; your addressbook is gone, until you reinstall windows messaging. Install Office Xp? Don't expect groupwise to work for longer then a minute...thought XP sp2 fixes that.
There have been tons of problems with this so far. Would exchange be any bettter? I have no idea, but I am sure it will at least work well with the other MS products, which make up most of what we work with here

Exchange Killer?

[Lord of the Fries]

I thought that's what all of those emails with embedded html viruses that people click on was.

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.

Wait a minute.

[SlashChick]

This is being touted as an Exchange killer, yet it costs $1249 for 10 licenses?

I just looked up Exchange 2000 Server pricing. Assuming you're upgrading from Exchange 5.5, the base package for Exchange 2000 Server is $639 and the additional 5 licenses need to bring your server up to 10 licenses are $499, bringing your total to $1138.

You save $111 in license fees by upgrading to Exchange 2000 instead of buying this solution.

Here is where I got my prices for Exchange. Note that I have no affiliation with this company and have never bought software there; I found them on a Google search.

So, if cost isn't the advantage here, what is? Exchange 2000 is pretty much guaranteed to have more features and support. I can't see why anyone would want to buy this product.

Re:Wait a minute.

[jas79]

that isn't right.

a)You are comparing a full version of a product with the upgrade version.
b) you need an OS to run exchange on.

taking the price of a full version of exchange and a full version of windows 2000. $644+$1200 =$1844

Re:Wait a minute.

[sdb6247]

Not only that, but you also need to buy the client access license for the windows server.

Keep adding to that $1844...

Re:Wait a minute.

[swfranklin]

Oh? That isn't the way the post was positioned: 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.

The presumed customer already has Exchange 5.5, and an OS that it is running on.

Re:Wait a minute.

[MyHair]

From reading the other comments, Openexchange appears to have a 10 concurrent user license where Microsoft is per seat licensed.

So if you have 200 users but only 10 are connected to the server at any given time you'd need a 10-user Openexchange license or a 200-user MS Exchange license.

Plus MS server OSes require client licensing, too. Suse doesn't.

At work a group was all sold on using terminal services, so we have Win2k terminal servers running Citrix and administered through Novell DeFrame. There are 5 licenses (Windows server, Citrix, Novell user, Novell DeFrame and application) required for every user/application. Yikes! And some licenses are per seat and some are per concurrent user. I guess you could call it six licenses if you throw in the MS Windows client. Why not?

Re:Wait a minute.

[ProfDumb]

This is being touted as an Exchange killer, yet it costs $1249 for 10 licenses?

You are comparing, I think, a discounted web price for an Exchange upgrade with a list price for Suse. Suse will also discount, everybody does. Also, others have posted that Suse is charging per connected user, rather than the total number of users who ever connect (if I understand the other posts.) This will make a difference. Further, if you need to upgrade other software (MS OS, Office) and the only thing holding you up from going to Linux / OpenOffice is Exchange, then Suse's OpenExchange prices might not have to be far below the MS price.

However, if Suse really undercuts pricing, MS could always increase its discounts until SuSe's commercial offering goes away. This is a big advantage of true open source -- it can't be priced out of the market.

Re:Wait a minute.

[azcoffeehabit]

If you look at the non-upgrade route (and assuming that you have all of the proper licenses to begin with) yes, your exchange upgrade is $111 less. BUT for a non-upgrade take a look the costs involved, there is the issue of your W2K server License $1,199. The cost of Exchange $699 and Exchange CALs(10 @ $67) $670 (according to M$ you must buy ALL CALs with the basic Exchange 2000) add those and you are over $2500 for a new set-up. Twice the cost of SUSE + Openexchange.

Re:Wait a minute.

[ivan256]

Ridiculous example for a mail server. Expect 100% of the people in the office to be connected to the server.

Alright! Somebody who doesn't know what they're talking about!

In an office with 100 users, you can expect the server to have zero users connected to it most of the time. You see, you don't stay connected to the server, you just poll for updates. Typically you poll every 5 minutes, but even if you poll every two minutes the server will still be inactive more often than not. There are 300 seconds in five minutes, and usually if your network is up to date you're not going to take more then 1 second to update. That means your server is idle two thirds of the time. Now, having a 10 concurrent access license is still a good idea because some users will likely access the server at the same time, but you are certainly not going to have everybody connected at once.

Check a local CS or discrete mathematics book about the "pigeonhole principal" for the probabilities. (and people say that CS is just programming, and all those theoretical classes aren't important!...)

Re:Wait a minute.

[charon_on_acheron]

Hey, that's not fair. Pulling out facts like that, and using their own words against them. :^)

I couldn't believe that was jas79's argument either. I guess not everyone understands the term 'drop-in replacement'.

Re:Wait a minute.

[stor]

>In an office with 100 users, you can expect the server to have zero users connected to it most of the time.

Not true if it's an IMAP server.

Cheers
Andy

Re:Wait a minute.

[scubacuda]

Exchange AND Windows CALs for each box...

Re:Wait a minute.

[derF024]

In an office with 100 users, you can expect the server to have zero users connected to it most of the time. You see, you don't stay connected to the server, you just poll for updates.

you may be thinking of protocols like pop, which polls occasionally. Imap and whatever exchange uses are connected to the server whenever the client is up. i worked in an office recently that ran exchange and used mailing lists for some inter-office annoucements. if you sent a message to one of these mailing lists, the message would instantly appear on every single screen in the office, making tons of simulatneous "new mail" chimes. unless the server pushes updates to the client, this would require an always-up connection to the mail server.

Re:Wait a minute.

[lucifuge31337]

No. No windows CALs. Please try to pay attention. Windows CALs are for file and/or print services only.

Re:Wait a minute.

[matman]

New mail notification on exchange is done using UDP packets.

Re:Wait a minute.

[SN74S181]

Also, others have posted that Suse is charging per connected user, rather than the total number of users who ever connect

The distinction is a lot less relevant than everybody here seems to make it. Places that use Exchange Server are businesses. Often regular 9-5 office type places. Everybody's computer is connected to the server concurrently. If you start telling people they have to pop in and log out because you're rationing connections, you're going to look like a fool and the guard standing next to you probably won't help you empty your desk into the box. His job is simply to escort you out of the building.

Re:Wait a minute.

[scubacuda]

Then Microsoft's License Desk told me wrong...

Re:MS Tax?

[Psx29]

Microsoft doesn't come close to this.

They are actually worse then the government if you think about it since what they are doing has already been declared illegal and many things they have done have been illegal and all they get is a slap on the wrist "don't do it again" the government says. The government and microsoft probably have closer ties than most people would like to think...some kind of twisted symbiotic relaionship...parasitic to the people however...(Editors Note: Or Maybe I am just paranoid)

Re:MS Tax?

[jas79]

Didn't MS tax orginal aply to new computers which always came with a MS OS. even if you didn't want the OS, you still had to pay the license.

Re:MS Tax?

[Spamuel]

Practically unusable? That's funny because the copy of Word 97 on my computer at home still opens doc files just fine.

Follows Kapor's "Outlook Killer"

[fastdecade]

This so-called Exchange "killer" follows the recent
"outlook killer".

Do not be alarmed Outlook and Exchange users: your products remain alive and well.

Drop-in: NOT

[jlv]

From the linked page:

The migration from MS Exchange 5.5 is possible without any difficulties.

But, if you go and read their detailed migration plan you'll see this is anything but drop-in. At least they come on-site to assist you in the process (you gotta get something for the extra $1K).

Exchange 5.5 doesn't do vCal/iCal so why bother?

[tzanger]

kdepim has a filter you can attach to kmail so it captures iCal/vCal attachments. I thought that this would be a great plan until I tried it.

Outlook 2000 running against Exchange Server 5.5 doesn't send iCal/vCal requests -- all it does is send this:

When: Friday, October 13, 2001
Place: Conference Room\nDuration: 2 hours

~~~[stupid lameness filter]~~~
This is a test meeting

wtf good is that?! I really want to use something that'll imitate that. Greaaaaat.

Timing is everything :-/

[tulare]

Just my luck - I'm in the middle of downloading SuSe from one of the mirrors, and it goes and gets slashdotted. What are the odds?

Re:Timing is everything :-/

[damiam]

Well I dunno, but this can't related, as it isn't available yet and won't be freely downloadable even when it is.

If this were an Exchange 2000 "killer"...

[NotoriousG.N.U.]

...I'd be more interested.

Kind of like, how interesting is an Office 95 killer?

The licensing doesn't looking like much of a bargain, either...

--

I love it when you call me longhair bath-needin' poppa!

Re:MS Tax?

[Anonymous Coward]

Then you are not buying from the right place. There are thousands of vendors that will sell you computer with no OS installed. You can also make them yourself (An extremely cost effective solution for large companies).

You are not "forced" to buy anything. You are whining. Nothing more.

What's the point?

[bamf]

It's not a "drop-in" replacement for Exchange, it's a "pay us $999 plus expenses if you have an old setup, otherwise ask us for a quote" replacement for Exchange.

It's not even cheap. I know I can get good pricing from Microsoft due the area in which I work (Healthcare), but this is considerably more expensive, probably twice the cost for just the base server application.

I think I'll give it a miss :-)

Re:MS Tax?

[nmg]

Interesting you should say that, as I have 200 233MHz PCs running Windows 98 with Office 97 perfectly fine, thank you very much.

Shoulda called it Foreign Exchange...

[Anonymous Coward]

together with Samba and cxoffice, you can now run LookOut and Exploder to get full MS virus capability for each user, on Linux...

Some alternatives...

[jeroenb]

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

Bynari however, does produce an actual replacement for Exchange, especially when coupled with the InsightConnector for Outlook.

Also, the former HP OpenMail now owned by Samsung and called Samsung Contact appears to support MAPI as well, so that could integrate with Outlook and have all those groupware/calendaring features.

And last, a Dutch company called ConnecTUX has created a Linux-based server application called Team-Link that integrates completely with Outlook and mimics all Exchange features. (Both sites in Dutch unfortunately.)

So plenty of alternatives. But I agree, this OpenExchange, is not one of them.

Re:Some alternatives...

[minion]

Our company used to use OpenMail for scheduling us on site somewhere. Worked great, except that Microsoft pulled all support for their previous MAPI extentions from Outlook 2002, so the connector that was supplied with OpenMail would not work. HP even said that they had no plans on making it work, and were selling it off.

Basically, when Microsoft can't make something better, they make it proprietary. In this case, rather than make Exchange better/cheaper, they just make Outlook not work with anything but Exchange.

Re:Some alternatives...

[alsta]

OpenMail and I would believe that Samsung Contact, use MAPI as a transport protocol. It's really kludgy. While Outlook and Exchange talk and exchange information on various objects with MAPI, the OpenMail variant is to use the client to populate OpenMail objects. To make this work, one needs HP's special little client layer with Outlook.

Nevertheless, it does work very well when properly configured. Delegation of principals works also.

OpenMail is however not at all a server that can natively drive Outlook. Think of a local calendar, shared on the server as a file object rather than a master calendar updated by objects.

Re:Some alternatives...

[spazimodo]

unfortunately Lotus hasn't released iNotes for Domino (R5) for Linux, so you really only get full Outlook functionality if you're running Domino on Windows (or OS/400 if you're a pimp). Supposedly R6 for Linux will include iNotes support, which would be killer.

Re:MS Tax?

[ncc74656]

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.

Sounds like you need to (a) find a different vendor or (2) start building your own machines. I suspect most screwdriver shops would have no problems building "naked PCs," and they probably use better parts than Dell anyway. (Some of 'em will use sh*tty parts if you let them get away with it, though, so be careful...you might want to specify the motherboard, processor, hard drive, etc. that you want if you're going to have the machine built.)

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.

Do what MS does..

[Anonymous Coward]

If they were smart, they'd do what M$ does when its trying to penetrate a market: get a few "early adopter" sites up and running, write a case study or two, and then market market market.

Show me 5 major companies that did the switch (and did it painlessly) and we'll talk. Otherwise, keep smoking.

Re:MS Tax?

[profaneone]

you are right it cannot be a tax....it must be a tribute then.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:MS Tax?

[Dragon213]

But have you tried to open any doc files from someone that has "upgraded" to Office 2000? Almost impossible unless that person has the sense-of-mind to save it in the old 97 Office format..........

Perhaps I'm wrong, but that fits the defination of "practically unusable" to me. Not to mention being an "MS Tax"...

"To open newer Office files, you will have to upgrade to Office 2000. This 'upgrade' will cost you all of your privicy rights (EULA), everything that's in your bank account (the actual monitary cost), and all your hair (from frustruation)."

"Thanks for calling Microsoft Tech Support, how can we mug you..I mean, help you...today?"

Hardly a replacement....

[Unnamed Source]

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

Re:MS Tax?

[caspper69]

You are mostly wrong. I use OfficeXP and my father runs '97. Never have a problem moving one doc to another*, and I don't save as another format. The last real change was with Office '95.

*I can't say it's entirely perfect because when I do a flowchart (graphics in word) he can't see it in editing mode, but he can in Print Preview and he can print it. Not a big deal since I do all of that and he doesn't ever use the feature, but I guess it could be a problem elsewhere.

Exchange 5.5 is key to Open Office and desktop...

[sphealey]

Kind of like, how interesting is an Office 95 killer?

Actually, there are a lot of shops out there running Exchange 5.5. In its day it was a reasonably good, Y2K compliant client/server mail system for those who had outgrown cc:Mail and didn't want to go the route of Lotus Notes.

Now however its day has passed. Many sites want to go to something more secure/stable, more manageable, more scalable. Problem is that Exchange 2000 brings along baggage and licensing fees that midsized shops in particular don't want to deal with.

So - an Exchange 5.5 "drop in" (please - without the security holes) would find a big market. As did Samba in replacing NT systems. And that might actually open the doors to Linux desktop + Open Office conversions.

sPh

Re:MS Tax?

[jedidiah]

Then you can start by telling us which PC vendors do this. You only get to include those with significant marketshare or a well trusted support organization.

Fred's house of parts doesn't count.

kroupware

[fava]

The kroupware project and and is supposed to be exchange compatible as well as open source and free of those pesky licencing fees.

Scheduled completion by the end of the year.

Good, now where can I get the source..

[dameron]

for "Open"Exchange...?

Easy now....

[kikensei]

Wow. SuSE doesn't have many supporters at /., eh? I've used SuSE mail servers 2 and 3 at a few consulting clients and find them to be well designed, solid products. THe price on Version 2 was a paltry $399 or some such, but SuSE learned that people don't buy a good thing unless its expensive, so they ratcheted the price of v.3 to $999. To install the SuSE server, you boot off the CD, accept all defaults and wait about 15 minutes. SuSE linux is installed jointly with the mail server, so from bare drive to fully functional takes about 20 minutes. Previous versions work well with IMAP or POP (i use IMAP) and come bundled with a a custom version of Arkeia backup software so you can slap on a tape drive and back up the server every night. Server has a great web mail client (much better in the Open Exchange version) and allows users to easily change their vacatin, auto-reply, forwarding prefs from a web config screen. Using outlook, Mozilla, Netscape or any LDAP compliant email client, you can pull all your user addresses off the server with a link to the server based LDAP directory, no server based config needed. I love this client for small business clients, and I will certainly give the latest a shot. Just 'cause the slashdot headline uses the term "exchange killer" doesn't mean you have to jump on SuSE like lemmings off a cliff. SuSE often touts "exchange-like groupware" functionality, only to reveal that its soley available via the web based client scheduler. That aside, they make good products. If you don't have time to configure your own, its worth a shot.

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.

Re:MS Tax?

[jedidiah]

So, you're basically admitting that you either have the choice of buying a black Model-T or building your own from parts.

For the vast majority of the market, THAT IS NO CHOICE AT ALL!

Come back when you're driving an automobile that you built yourself from parts. Until then, don't bother us.

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!

Re:Why all this playing catch up?

[Dialithis]

Thankfully, thats exactly what SuSe did. The whole thing is just a lot of open source products sold together.. Cyrus IMAP, Apache, etc. It won't interoperate at all with clients expecting an Exchange server from what it looks like.

No Need

[BurritoWarrior]

I already have an Exchange replacement.

Try and keep it hush hush, OK?

It's called Lotus Notes. Shhhhh.

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

[sbjornda]

Does Windows have a net-based install that only requires a couple of floppies to get going?

If your computer has a PXE-enabled NIC you don't even need floppies to do your net-based install of Windows. It's called RIS. Still, most folks prefer to Ghost. But see here for a discussion of a voice-activated RIS-based install of Windows.

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

[Bert64]

It`s possible to install windows using just a boot floppy, or you can boot off the network using a NIC which supports this.
We installed hundreds of workstations using these boot floppies, insert disk, power on, come back 30 minutes later.
Also the windows gui lets you go between objects using tab, and for the most part can be controlled entirely using the keyboard, infact it`s better than most X11 windowmanagers for keyboard support.

Re:MS Tax?

[Anonymous Cowrad]

Props to you, my good man, but you should have logged in. Your post is one of the more insightful posts I've read today.

It's funny to watch threads like this. The parent immediately gets -1, while everyone who points out the popular sentiment gets +1 Insightful.

You're not allowed to be pro-microsoft here. You're also not allowed to be anti-anti microsoft.

Yay for herd mentality!

Re:MS Tax?

[Dragon213]

I wasn't speaking of XP to any other compatibility...I was strictly speaking from my experance with Office 2000...which IS NOT compatable with older versions of Office unless you tell it to save to a diffrent format...they probably changed this with XP due to the anti-trust lawsuits

Re:MS Tax?

[Mikeytsi]

Notice the word "want" that preceeds "forced". Now, watch as I substitute, and make this argument sound stupid.

If I "want" a Outback, I'm "forced" to buy a Subaru.

If you don't like the restrictions a company tries to put on your purchases, DON'T BUY FROM THEM. Or are you incapable of building a system that matches a name brand in performance?

Dude you getting taxed!

[skeedlelee]

Requiring marketshare ehh...

Boy you're making this hard...

Actually the first one I checked falls into this category... DELL... Maybe you've heard of them?

True you can get servers from them with RedHat now but near as I can tell anything in their Dimensions line (aimed at home users) gives you the generous choice of Win XP Home, Pro, Home with Plus or Pro with Plus. Their workstation line also gives you the choice of Win 2000. Oooo...

That's what people are complaining about with the MS tax business. See for your self, choose any desktop or workstation line and try to configure it without windows... you can't!

Ironically, it's those without the 'significant marketshare' who will sell you a computer without charging you for windows. Fred's house o' parts will probably happily assemble you a computer sans OS no problemo.

Re:Dude you getting taxed!

[charon_on_acheron]

Hell, I'll build you a computer and not charge for the Win98 copy I do install.

I ain't the Redmond police. ;^)

Re:Dude you getting taxed!

[ColdGrits]

"See for your self, choose any desktop or workstation line and try to configure it without windows... you can't!"

That's strange, because my G4 Mac didn't come with Windows...

Re:Dude you getting taxed!

[skeedlelee]

"That's strange, because my G4 Mac didn't come with Windows..."

Nor did it come from Dell...

Re:Dude you getting taxed!

[ColdGrits]

No shit, Sherlock!

However, you did overlook one obvious problem with your statement - it is irrelevant. The discussion was not "does Dell impose the M$ tax", but "ALL PCs impose the M$ tax and it is impossible to buy a desktop system without M$ Windows".

Learn to read before commenting, hmmm?

Re:Dude you getting taxed!

[skeedlelee]

Actually, here's the original question:
(Oh look, I'm reading!)

"Then you can start by telling us which PC vendors do this. You only get to include those with significant marketshare or a well trusted support organization."

Sounds an awful lot the original poster didn't think any major players did this. My point was not only that a major PC manufacturer does this but that arguably THE major PC manufacturer does this. The way I think about it, it makes sense for the major players in the PC market who provide service contracts to want Windows on their boxes, when fielding support calls you don't want to spend half your time trying to puzzle out what so and so did to their OS, you'd like homogeneity in the OS at least.

Apparently, I got you a bit miffed, but you should have read the original question in the first place.

Maybe you should follow your own advice...

Re:MS Tax?

[ncc74656]

So, you're basically admitting that you either have the choice of buying a black Model-T or building your own from parts.

WTF is that supposed to mean?

For the vast majority of the market, THAT IS NO CHOICE AT ALL!

Please explain for everybody here how Joe Luser is only able to choose from among whatever is available at Best Buy, CompUSA, etc. This should be interesting. Just because those are the only computer-buying options Joe Luser knows about before he buys his first computer doesn't mean that his choice is restricted in any way...he could find other vendors in the yellow pages, or maybe a geek friend of his could turn him onto something better. It's also likely that by the time he's ready to get rid of his first computer in a couple of years, he'll figure out that he got shafted the first time around and will go elsewhere.

Until then, don't bother us.

Yeah, we can't have impure thought around here...it'll upset the Slashbots who can't get over their "M$" fetish.

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

[minion]

The Microsoft tax came about when computer manufacturers like Dell and Gateway signed their lives away to sell MS OSes and no other preinstalled on machines. Thats why its called a tax, because, until recently, you couldn't buy a Dell, IBM, or a Gateway, without also buying a MS OS with it.

Re:MS Tax?

[charon_on_acheron]

"driving an automobile that you built yourself from parts"

Actually, I've been wanting to do this myself for a couple years. Only don't call it an automobile. Call it a personal computer, with self-locating chassis, that can go 80mph and gets 20mpg.

Have it all built to spec, like hand-made bicycles. Computer will be installed next to the operator's seat, the bookshelf for manuals will be in the rear of the chassis, with a lockable cover over it (actually carrying manuals is optional). Seat for co-operator, and possibly mini-operators, also shall be included. But it isn't a four passanger car, no way. It's a computer damnit.

Of course it would cost a lot, but I wouldn't have to license it with the state. :^)

Re:MS Tax?

[duncan7]

I think the word you seek is "pidgin." Look it up.

Re:MS Tax?

[Elwood P Dowd]

There are many computer stores in my area that will sell me a computer with no OS on it. In fact, they outnumber the compusa/officedepot/etc chains. Their storefronts are much smaller, but there's one at every mall. That is a considerably higher penetration than compusa. They have names like "Ace's Computers" and they'll sell you exactly what you ask them for. To imply that most home users are somehow barred from using them is absurd. They deal with home users all day long, every day.

"MS tax" applies to businesses that have chosen to invest money in Microsoft products, and did not invest in alternatives. Now their costs would be way too high to switch, so Microsoft charges slightly less than that cost. This, of course, is nothing like a real tax. AC's comment was totally on point. Your comment was totally incorrect. Or, show how I'm wrong.

Now we need replacement for a Blackberry server

[theinfobox]

I'm doing some consulting work for a couple of small companies that are hooked on those Blackberry email devices. They want to use the Enterprise edition(so the email redirection takes place transparently on the server). Unfortunately, when I tell them the costs of an Exchange server(they use POP3 now) plus Blackberry software($3000) plus consulting fees, they balk at the idea. I would love to throw in a sendmail or postfix server instead, but need the Blackberry redirection.

Re:Now we need replacement for a Blackberry server

[toupsie]

I have a couple of sales guys that use Blackberries with the standard Blackberry Internet account. What I do is run an iMac with Mac OS X and Outlook Express (Mac OS 9) which POPs their e-mail account, runs the e-mail through a couple of rules/applescripts and redirects their legit e-mail to their Blackberry e-mail account. Works very well.

The iMac is a Rev. C with 96mb Ram (less than recommended). With Outlook Express Mac OS 9's redirect, it looks like it was sent directly to the Blackberry device. Not only do they get the e-mail on their Blackberry, it is also in their notebook. Very slick, cheap and hasn't failed yet.

Whats wrong with Novell Groupwise?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll tell you what's wrong.

Its suck is high, and it comes from a company that won't last 2 more years.

Other than that, its terrific.

The real Exchange killer

[Anonymous Coward]

Lotus Domino is far more powerful than Exchange. In features, security and performance. The new Notes 6 blows Outlook out of the water (as if R5 didn't already.)

Re:The real Exchange killer

[marcushnk]

Right on brother!

Re:The real Exchange killer

[wbowman]

I'm so glad someone mentined this. Notes/Domino has a larger market share than Exchange in corporate environments, has far more features, and the server runs on Red Hat (and AIX, and Windows)! The Designer client used for development is Windows-only in the recent version 6, but the normal client is Windows and Mac (Carbon). Domino will be the real gladiator in the battle against MS Exchange and .Net with Lotus Domino and IBM Websphere.

Re:MS Tax?

[cscx]

But have you tried to open any doc files from someone that has "upgraded" to Office 2000? Almost impossible unless that person has the sense-of-mind to save it in the old 97 Office format..........

You are 1000% incorrect. Office 97 is compatible with Office 2000 is compatible with office XP (2002).

You're thinking of OFFICE 95, which is long forgotten and no one has used since 1996.

Re:MS Tax?

[cscx]

We're talking about fucking EXCHANGE SERVER here. AFAIK, this entire thread about "the MS tax" is offtopic, but michael^H^H^H^H^H^H^H the article submitter is a flaming asshole for even mentioning it.

Face it, Exchange is Exchange and nothing will ever be Exchange. This open source 'Exchange server replacement' will be like 90% of Linux offerings: sloppy seconds.

That is all.

Embrace and extend

[Tomster]

Hey, learn from the best. First embrace the existing standard (Microsoft)... then extend it.

-Thomas

Re:Will It Work As A Drop-in For 5.0?

[cscx]

No way! Some OTHER guy with the name "The Turd Report" is posting messages with the username "The Turd Report?!?"

Thanks for clearing that up!

just a thought...

[peterpi]

If they were Exchange killers then we wouldn't need yet another one.

Isn't it always so...

[Second_Derivative]

The presence of "Open" in something's name seems almost as big a guarantee that it's proprietary as seeing "Microsoft" in its name. Just about the only exception I can think of is OpenOffice.

Exchange who?

[krokodil]

I've heard about exchange students, but exchange killers!?

Re:MS Tax?

[H310iSe]

actaully, sorry, but you're wrong. Office 95-97 was the last time microsoft changed 'the binary format' of word documents - meaning office 97 documents are the same as 2000 and Office XP. There are features in the latter releases not supported in 97 so you may see "office 97 compatability" turned on in the document properties, this, in turn can cause some relatively obscure problems but for the most part Office 97 files work just fine in latter editions and vice-versa. Access is the one exception - .mdb files made in O2K and later are not fully backward compatible (a big part of the problem is O97 VBA for access differed significantly from O2K VBA for access).

There are lots of reasons to not like MS I want to make sure you get some of the good ones - this one is a red herring.

Suse and Open Source?

[micaiah]

When people compare Red Hat to M$ it makes me cringe. I never see the comparison made with Suse. If there is an M$ of Linux it is definitely Suse. Look at Yast for example and now this. At least Red Hat still makes their latest release available to the public for free not to mention they give back to the Open Source community. Here is an examples as well as this one. I do buy their OS after I have tried it out because I want to support them not only to help keep them alive, but also because they have maintained some open source business ethics.

I'm surprised...

[scubacuda]

...that MS hasn't sued them for their name.

Lindows is clearly different than Windows.

Openexchange blatantly rips off Exchange. (Not that I think it's a bad thing...I think it's quite cool, actually...and should be legal)

Trademark Infringement??

[chazbear]

How long will Microsoft sit still before sending Suse a cease and desist for trademark infringement? Although I think they have a weak case against Lindows, the name Openexchange could in fact be confusing to consumers. We've seen this time and again.

Okay...

[krinsh]

now I'm seriously considering taking some time to put a few of my home test boxen to Linux use - when I can get the 1994-era monitor to work properly with one of the distros. This alternative email server might be just what my area's small businesses are looking for - a low cost alternative to outsourcing their email; letting them maintain considerable control over things and not paying another to store their stuff - especially the ones that want to keep their communications business sensitive, etc.

Re:Where are the features?

[kc8apf]

You obviously didn't bother to read anything at the link provided. It offers a web interface, POP3 and IMAP (hence server-side storage), uses standard mailstores and OpenLDAP for the calandering and such. Recovery of mbox mailboxes is fairly trivial, however, I know nothing of recovering OpenLDAP (it seems to be Berkley DB so that should be possible). Accessing ex-employees info is simple, just reassign access to the OpenLDAP data and append the mbox to someone else. Heck, it's probably even an automated option in the web interface. As for mailbox recovery, if you delete a mbox, it's gone. That's why you have tape. I personally think it's stupid for Exchange to keep the data around after you delete someone. Talk about a long-term waste of space.

Interesting use of "Exchange"

[Chuck Chunder]

Sounds like a good way to get you ass sued by microsoft!

Re:...not an exchange killer without Active Direct

[kc8apf]

Actually, AD is based entirely on Kerberos and LDAP. It's very easy to interoperate with. In fact you can even have sendmail and postfix automatically setup mail aliases from AD info. It's really neat but not well documented on how to do it. I recently got Solaris talking with AD for authentication. I can now easily pull all sorts of info from AD.

Re:MS Tax?

[Zapdos]

The MS Tax is when company X, that makes loafs of bread, upgrades their software every three years they incur software and equipment expenses. These expenses will be applied to the cost of bread , which will result in a more expensive loaf of bread at the supermarket.. This MS Tax affects almost all consumer goods. You may argue that the upgrades make things simpler and less expensive. With 20+ years of experience I can honestly say that is an absolute lie.

Re:Will It Work As A Drop-in For 5.0?

[Anonymous Coward]

Who mods these things up? Exchange 5.0 can absolutely be secured not to relay mail. It has fewer relay options than Exchange 5.5 (or Exchange 2000), but it is absolutely configurable as relay secure. For those who need 'more' SMTP relay functionality than Exchange 5.0 supplies, there are a number of solutions which don't require upgrading the Exchange version to achieve.

While anyone posting as 'The Turd Report' is likely a troll, I'm sure there's at least one slashdot reader who is going to take what he said as gospel and repeat the misinformation elsewhere.

If you think this post is +1 informative, keep your karma mod the parent down instead.

Not unlike Twiggi Groupware...

[wtom]

Is there very much functional difference between this and Twiggi?

Where's the MAPI?

[otis wildflower]

A real exchange "killer" needs to emulate MAPI enough to work with Outlook for shared calendars and tasks.

Anyone got a pointer to solid MAPI documentation? It's amazing that a samba-like project for it hasn't sprouted up..

Cost savings?

[jav1231]

While the client license is abit different in that it uses simultaneous logins as the basis, the initial cost is not much lower for the server OS. The original article I saw a week ago gave a $1295 price tag. A base Exchange 5.5 price tag runs about $1495. Based on that, and the fact that there is still a price-per-client license (albeit different in structure), I don't see this as a MS killer unless you factor in that most Exchange sites are being hit with upgrades to Exchange2K. >

let 'em use exchange

[b17bmbr]

hell, if businesses want to pay up the ass for stuff like exchange, let 'em. it seems to me that we are always playhing catch up with m$. openoffice is a great replace ror office97, gnome/kde can replace win98, this replaces exchange 5.5, etc.

by now, people should be long since fed up with m$. but they're not. why? people don't care enough. look, i am in a school district that spends way to f***in m,uch for crappy solutions. but they don't care. it ain't their money.

m$ offers an easy solution, not a real solution. give 'em credit. they figured out how to sell software, not write it.

Bynari comparison, please?

[faster]

Can someone who has implemented Bynari's solution (Linux server apps, DLL for Outlook to allow use of a generic IMAP server instead of Exchange) please comment on how well it works, and how it compares to Exchange?

Specifically, what features of Exchange are missing or weak when using the Bynari products, and how robust is Outlook with the Bynari DLL (relative to an unmodified Outlook)?

Even though there are some payware components, if it really allows me to dump Exchange, it's worth doing.

Re:Bynari comparison, please?

[internet-redstar]

see my other post
Wrt Outlook robust-ness, it's recommended to upgrade your Outlook to the latest 'service pack' to avoid problems there.
Also, the configuration changes to Outlook are not very straight-forward to do (unless familiar with it).

Server-side Exchange features such as document flow (which is hardly ever used) are missing.

All the traditional features such as shared folders, meeting requests, appointments, free/buzy , synchronisation with PDA, and such are there...

Check out there website at www.bynari.net or download a demo ISO image

Another killer ?

[Lord Sauron]

As if the shootings in DC were not enough.

Re:MS Tax?

[plus5insightful]

The historic phrase "Microsoft Tax" generally refers to the additional cost for licensing when buying a product such as a Dell: There was no way to get around this additional cost because of bundling agreements they have with Microsoft. This was compounded by the fact that virtually every other VAR had the same policies and would not resell a computer without a Windows license. Carry this same example over the laptops.

However, trying to extrapolate this out to Microsoft Exchange is incredibly weak. Exchange is not a perfect product, however it is very highly regarded; It offers a superb feature set for many organizations. Exchange is an entirely optional product, as is upgrading, and there is not "Tax like" element of it.

Re:MS Tax?

[plus5insightful]

The MS Tax is when company X, that makes loafs of bread, upgrades their software every three years they incur software and equipment expenses. These expenses will be applied to the cost of bread , which will result in a more expensive loaf of bread at the supermarket.

The cost of software, in the grand scheme of most operations, is absolutely trivial. The effect of real taxes nested into every good and service that the breadmaker buys would make the cost of the software pale in comparison.

If you really think those upgrades are unnecessary, then feel free to freeze your computer system at a current state in time and stay there. What's that: Your Wordperfect 5.1 can't save your formatted documents as HTML/CSS?

The answer's already out there

[ValiantButter]

Lotus Domino 6 on Linux.

iNotes Web Access OR Outlook clients on the workstation. Maybe the Notes 6 client for people who know how to use *real* groupware.

Easy stuff.

Re:Where are the features?

[Kunta Kinte]

Not to be rude, but this is hilarious.

FIrst no mention of single instance storage. The money you save in licensing you'll spend in increased storage costs.

Please tell me you're joking. How much space do you think the average email server saves using this? At any rate Cyrus supports this, see http://winnie.acsu.buffalo.edu/doc/overview.html#s ingleinstance . Now I really wish people would stop bringing up that stupid buzzword.

Second where is the server based mail storage? Again the money you save on licensing you'll spend backing up mail downloaded on users' computers or home folders.

Thats a basic function of IMAP . You really should research this stuff.

Third, I didn't read anything about a web interface to read your mail like Outlook Web Access.

Ever heard of IMP or squirrellmail? http://www.squirrelmail.org/ How did you get moded +5??

Backups are the same scenario. Actually with Cyrus, you can simpley change the ACL on the mailbox to admin only if you want to prevent access and not delete it. Cyrus has it's entire admin functionality exposed as a PERL module so that you can script the server directly to do what the hell you want when a employee is terminated.

OpenLDAP is just as easy to back up. A simple LDIF dump, or copy the db files.

Both these packages are rock solid. I mean months and months with absolutely *zero* downtime, except for upgrades, and even then with failover the users never notices a thing. I've managed several. Including Cyrus in an ISP environment.

+5 ??!! LOL

HP OpenMail

[haruchai]

Does anyone here use OpenMail. How does is stack up against Exchange? I'd downloaded an evaluation for Linux some time back but had a hard drive failure and, by the time I was ready to give it a testdrive, HP had discontinued it.

Does anyone have or know where I can get a copy to try? bannor99athotmaildotcom

gee...

[mikewren420]

It seems....

Too little, too late.

Most admins have upgraded from the nightmare of 5.5 to the misery of 2k... as long as a geek-frindly solution is nine months behind the curve, what will the excuse be when they perminantly 404? I've yet to see a timely Exchange killah...

Please, I (and the 15 clients I consult) would *love* to have an alternative.... oh yeah, the first person that says sendmail I'll go Malvo on...

Re:MS Tax?

[lsdino]

The cost of software, in the grand scheme of most operations, is absolutely trivial.

Infact, not only is the cost of software trivial, but software generally increases profits. Hardware does the same thing. There's this little thing called 'productivity', and software & hardware increase it. If it didn't, companies wouldn't buy it. End of story.

pigeon-hole principle?

[pwarf]

Aww, come on. Dirichlet drawer principle sounds so much more intimidating.:)

Seriously, though. What are you using as pigeons, users (currently connected)? And the 10 license seats as pigeon holes? I don't see where you are going with this approach.

It seems like the probability of k successes in n independent Bernoulli trials would be more appropriate.

I freely admit that I don't have any experience with servers, Exchange or otherwise. However, on the SuSE website it says concurrent users logged in . If there is persistence of "logged-in"edness (excuse the word coining), then the question of probable peak number of users connected to the server at once is moot.

It's an interesting question, though, regardless of applicability. If you are right about the time it takes to reconnect and the update frequency, then I am pretty sure I agree with you that 10 concurrent users connected is plenty for 100 users. However, we might as well do the math:

Given 100 users, each polling every two minutes, with each poll taking 1 second to update, how rare is having 11 or more connected at once?

Okay, well, there are 120 seconds in two minutes. To calculate the probability that more than eleven users are connected at once, you have to sum the probability of having 11 users connected, 12 users connected, 13, etc. Or, sum from 0 to 10. Feel free to do the former, but I'm going to sum from 0 to 10.

The probability of k users logged on out of n is C(n,k)*(p^k)*(q^(n-k)).
In this case, p is equal to 1/120 and q is equal to 119/120.
0.4330833969 for 0 users.
0.3639356276 for (exactly) 1 user logged on.
0.151384988 for (exactly) 2 users logged on.
0.0415566634 for (exactly) 3 users logged on.
0.0084684797 for (exactly) 4 users logged on.
0.0013663429 for (exactly) 5 users logged on.
1.817963304e-4 for (exactly) 6 users logged on.
2.0514832e-5 for (exactly) 7 users logged on.
2.004074975e-6 for (exactly) 8 users logged on.
1.721520987e-7 for (exactly) 9 users logged on.
1.316457225e-8 for (exactly) 10 users logged on.

1 - (sum of above)= 9.4596*10^-10 or 9.4596*10^-8%= probability of more than 10 users being connected to the server per second.

Thus, after 17 years, a little over half the time you will have had more than 10 users connected. (That wasn't as clear as I'd like. What I meant to say is that for each 34 years you will violate the concurrent connection policy an average of 1 time). That is making the assumption that all 100 computers are continuously on and polling the server at a rate of once per two minutes, regardless of it being day or night.

Okay, well, having run through the numbers, I have to agree with you, assuming you are right about the technical details.

However, there was no need to be so harsh to the previous poster. The original poster could have been referring to being "logged in" rather than actively transmitting/receiving data from the server.

Re:pigeon-hole principle?

[ivan256]

Seriously, though. What are you using as pigeons, users (currently connected)? And the 10 license seats as pigeon holes?

Nope, I was thinking of user/seconds as pigeons and seconds as pigeon holes. You're right that it doesn't make sense at all using the license seats as pigeon holes.

Thus, after 17 years, a little over half the time you will have had more than 10 users connected. (That wasn't as clear as I'd like. What I meant to say is that for each 34 years you will violate the concurrent connection policy an average of 1 time). That is making the assumption that all 100 computers are continuously on and polling the server at a rate of once per two minutes, regardless of it being day or night.

Exactly, but you don't need to be in violation. You'll just have to make somebody wait an extra second once every three decades.

Re:MS Tax?

[Zapdos]

That is the big lie. With the exception of a Data Center the productivity limit is the human not the computer, You will not see large jumps in productivity until you can replace the human. Replacing windows NT with XP and office 2000 with 2002 will not increase productivity enough to offset the cost, to say so is to lie. We operate the largest privately owned network in the world, upgrading will cost us several million dollars. This cost will be transferred to our customers.

I like upgrades, I do not like the MS upgrade plan. It is great to know that I can do unlimited upgrades with no licensing cost for software that I prefer.

Bynari is already there!

[internet-redstar]

The combination of Bynari Insight Server and the Insight Connector (who come bundled) gives exactly the Exchange replacement needed.

Above the cost advantage, the following advantages are there:
- easy backup/restore: as everything is stored in IMAP folders (also contacts/calender info,...) individual mails or user accounts can be restored using normal filesystem backup/restore utilities. With Exchange everything is stored in 1 big black box file making it VERY, VERY hard to restore that email the CEO accidently deleted (you need to restore an entire Exchange server to another machine)
- high performance
- no per server user limit (I believe 2500 users is a hardcoded maximum in Exchange)
- runs not only on Intel hardware but also on PPC and Mainframe (interesting for big organisations)
- integrated antivirus software (Bynari ships with RAV)
- integrated Realtime Blacklist (www.mailabuse.org)
- Linux based (security, stability, performance, cost)
- Easy server clustering and replication with standard Linux tools (ultramonkey, rsync,...)

What isn't there yet:
- integrated webmail (but you can do that quickly yourself)
- user authentication through Active Directory (will come)
- Security holes ;)

Re:Bynari is already there!

[internet-redstar]

almost forgot to mention that appearantly this SUSE development uses the same technology towards Outlook: the Bynari Insight Client (2 DLL's for outlook)

Re:Still a tax.........??????????/

[ninthwave]

Open Source.

Two words.

Open = not closed
Source = code

Open Source you can get the source code.

Free as in speech not beer.

Re:MS Tax?

[Bedouin X]

Well I know that in my case, I have no choice. I work for a state gorvernment institution and we can only buy computers from certain vendors, they are all T-1 and none of them give me that choice... I'm sure that many state governments operate the same way.

Try comparing apples to apples.

[scottme]

Notes is the Lotus desktop client. You'd have to compare that to Outlook, and I agree that against Outlook Notes looks bloated, but only if you regard it as a "simple" mail client. Actually the full Notes client does a lot more than just email. It's the client end for client-server applications, the server being Lotus Domino, which in fact compares quite favourably with Exchange. And it runs on Linux (and Solaris and IBM iSeries and zSeries as well as Windows).

And here's another thing you might not know: you can use Domino as the server and Outlook as the client. Yes! So users who are seduced by the slick look & feel of the MS product can continue to use that POS, and the IT manager has the comfort of knowing that the host end is running a secure, scalable, proven application that he doesn't have to rip & replace each time Microsoft releases a new, incompatible and painful-to-upgrade-to version of Exchange.

Mapi's an API, not a protocol.

[LO0G]

MAPI is a well specified set of API interfaces that Outlook uses to communicate to the Microsoft Exchange server. The MAPI provider that Outlook ships with use a propriatary protocol to communicate with the Exchange server. There's absolutely nothing stopping SUSE from producing their own MAPI provider and dropping that under Outlook. Lotus does this for Notes, for example - Outlook runs against a Notes server without modifications because of the MAPI provider that Notes ships.

Re:Mapi's an API, not a protocol.

[Zeio]

I have yet to see MAPI plug ins for GroupWise, OpenMail or Notes "emulate" an Exchange server transparently yet [I hate collaboration software so I don't keep up with it]. Give me some links to prove what you say is true. I would like the marketing creeps to get all their globally shared objects, public folders, shared calendars, etc, using Bloatus Notes or "Novel" GroopWise, maybe Bynari or Contact.

Seriously. I would think that the best selling point for any of those back ends would be first and foremost Eliminate Exchange Server from Your Back End SEAMLESSLY, which OpenMail used to proclaim loudly before Carly killed it.

And about Unix users with GroupWise and Notes. What do they use for a client for a shared Calendar? Back to the same problem Exchange has, no support for the Unix users (they offer IMAP, POP, SMTP, but not iCal, or real Outlook LAF to non Winderz users). Not in the same capacity as the users of Win32 get.

This SuSE is a failure. No MAPI plug-in, its just yet another attempt to bundle already existing services into "Exchange". And no calendaring. Its such crap. My sights are set on GroupWise or Samsung Contact (aka OpenMail) if I were begged to implement this again.

SuSE people should really back off hard with the Exchange Killing crap until they can do what Contact does. That's a feature set which half-lives up to that proclamation (a MAPI plug-in namely).

This being said. I deprecate Microsoft monopolism with regards to desktop operating system. I also strongly denounce the availability of things like Exchange Server and the other pieces of their back office attempts for any other target besides Windows operating systems. But I think they earned their monopoly when I see big companies simply ignoring the problems at hand. Brats in marketing departments have been getting Exchange littered about corporate networks with the Unix vendors sitting around scratching tiher heads. Microsoft clearly listens to customers demands first. Unix vendors throw out viable Exchange Killers like OpenMail. Carly Fiorina got some from Bill Gates in a Redmond bathroom and he told her he was her daddy and for more hanky she would have to throw out OpenMail. And she did.

I tried Notes on Linux server 5.0.X not too long ago. I tried to get it to replace Exchange in every capacity and I couldn't get it to work that way. I would like to know how, but since there are no "how to no solicit Microsoft Exchange but still make marketing lunatics happy with a fully functioning copy of outlook." There is no such document I am aware of.

Mod Parent Up

[oliverthered]

I've worked with MAPI and have helped write mail providers in MAPI.
MAPI provides a standard for an interface into any protocal you care to write a provider for, e.g. Low speed, wireless over imarsat, no exchange server necessesary.

Re:MS Tax?

[No-op]

All major OEMs do this. Dell, Compaq, HP, Gateway, Sony, Samsung, Micron, IBM... that good for a start?

Their licensing arrangements with MS dictate that the majority (or all) of their x86 machines be sold with a MS license; if you wanted to buy a desktop with Linux, you're going to buy it with a MS license which you paid for. if they changed this arrangement, they would pay a much higher per-license fee to MS.

I realise a few vendors like IBM and Dell will sell some pre-installed linux distros on server gear and whatnot, but that's usually on selected models and is mostly irrelevant to this discussion.

If you bought PCs in large quantities for a living you'd understand!

Re:Exchange 5.5 doesn't do vCal/iCal so why bother

[crucini]

Outlook 2000 running against Exchange Server 5.5 doesn't send iCal/vCal requests -- all it does is send this: [textual representation of appointment]

Here's what I think is really happening. Outlook sends messages to Exchange via a proprietary protocol. The protocol allows appointment objects to be included in a message. When you get mail from Exchange via POP or IMAP, the messages are "reconstructed" into text from a binary data structure. Note that the headers are somewhat bogus - for example there is no Received header for the Outlook-Exchange hop, which was theoretically the first hop.

The "reconstruction" process doesn't know what to do with the appointment object, and therefore drops it.

The textual representation is probably a non-essential nicety generated by Outlook in the body of the mail so the message won't have an empty body. I think it can be shut off in Outlook - there is at least one user whose appointment messages appear empty to me (I POP from Exchange.)

Re: Some alternatives... CommuniGate Pro

[crisco]

Too bad I blew through my mod points already, CGP does indeed seem like a decent server. I got the demo set up and running with little hassle. The pricing is indeed steep, though it is below MS prices. Another issue is low quantity licensing, I've got clients with tiny workgroups that want to use Outlook calendaring.

Re:SuSE is not an open-source company.

[Isle]

Except that they fund most of the driver development for Xfree86, a lot of KDE developers, an important handfull of linux kernel developers and much more.

So what are you claiming, that Xfree86, KDE and Linux are all closed source, or that you are a complete moron?

Nope, the AC's lose ;-)

[Helen O'Boyle]

It's a WHOLE lot easier to code in *nix with BSD sockets than it is to code in Win32/MAPI.

That's why I was able to DOUBLE my hourly rate when doing server-side MAPI code in C, vs. what it had been doing generic tcp/ip apps code in *nix C.

Given that, why use MAPI? At the time, it was the only way to get to the Exchange message store. And some of those apps are still around, hence the issues with Exchange -> anything else migration.
--
* Helen *

Re:current state of Outlook/Exchange protocols

[Helen O'Boyle]

I haven't played in the MAPI space in several years, so take this as direction but not The Definitive Word.

Outlook/Exchange USED TO require connection via a proprietary protocol, using MAPI. Since Exchange now supports POP3 and MAPI, in many cases, the lock-in may be as simple as the fact that apps are written using MAPI, and those apps are hardcoded to use the proprietary protocol, because they were written back in the day that there wasn't much other choice. (I can't think of any feature in the Outlook/Exchange connection that absolutely REQUIRES the use of a non-open protocol -- anyone??) [ That being said, Outlook's IMAP support could be better -- I don't think the same perf work has been done on their IMAP as on their POP3, which as another poster pointed out, has gotten a lot more efficient since the old days. ]

What is the proprietary protocol called? It's been 5 years, and I don't recall. It is not a typical MS "embrace and extend" of a standard protocol, though. When MS was designing Exchange, it had not yet noticed the Internet. The important thing to note is that merely coding to the MAPI API doesn't necessarily tie you to the proprietary protocol (unless you're using functions available in it and not in the open protocols, if any).

Using your nomenclature, where -- is a funcall and == is the wire protocol, the conversation basically looks like:

[application]--[mapi.dll]--[transport_provider.d ll ]===proto_of_choice===[transport_provider.dll]--[m api.dll]--[Exchange]

A transport provider is the interface between the MAPI functions and the wire protocol, be it the proprietary protocol, or SMTP, or POP3, or whatever. THEORETICALLY, the MAPI API was designed to allow drop-in replacement of the transport_provider.dll layer -- but I'm not sure how well that works in practice.

In addition to the proprietary protocol, there are other lock-in features to Exchange such as being able to access the message store as if it was a database, add any number of additional properties (think of them as headers, though that's not completely accurate) to messages for categorization/sorting/selection, etc.

The thing about creating a "drop in replacement" for Exchange is to remember that Exchange is an entire platform to code to, and different organizations have done this to greater and lesser extents. Do I know Exchange-based shops who run nothing but vanilla Exchange and Outlook clients? Yes -- most small ones I know. Do I know Exchange-based shops who run odd "connectors" between MAPI and mainframe email systems, custom desktop programs using MAPI to implement workflow apps, etc.? Yes -- most large ones I know.

So a not-completely-drop-in replacement may be fine for many smaller sites, and this may be what the "Exchange replacement" projects are targeting for starters.
--
* Helen *

Re:MS Tax?

[gandy909]

I think what he is actually referring to is the change between Access 97 and Access 2000. There was a change there.

Re:Mod Parent Up sugarbitch fuck a goat ass

[oliverthered]

It's not a fucking protocol, get the point!!!!

look goto microsoft and search for MAPI, I susspect the API bit should be a pointer to the fact it's an API not a protocol.

Oh look Messaging API (MAPI) Programmer's Reference

Stop trolling and get a propper job, or at least if you are a troll then get some knowlage about what your talking about.

Re:MS Tax?

[jedidiah]

The microcomputer market is an oligarchy that controls shelf space at the reputable consumer outlets. Also, a consumer needs to have some reasonable indication that their basic warranties will be upheld.

Most consumers do not buy their goods off of some truck that happens to be parked by the side of the road.

This is especially true of corporate purchases that fuel compatibility network effects and economies of scale.

Re:MS Tax?

[jedidiah]

Do you really expect Joe Luser to trust some fly by night operation that won't even be in business by the time his warranties expire? The only reason that you would even dare is because you are the computing equivalent of an auto mechanic.