Slashdot Mirror
Mozilla Lightning to Challenge Outlook
MS IE Bug Finder writes "Although Microsoft is dismissing Mozilla Lightning, the article indicates the combination of Thunderbird (mail) with Sunbird (calendaring) should be a worthy opponent against Outlook by the middle of the new year." Reader EvilStein adds a link to the Lightning Q&A.
I would be willing to use any Open Source client but the Outlook server won't allow any other client to connect to it other than MS Outlook. Any hints on how to trick the thing to let me use other clients.
Sorry, but this time Microsoft wins. Sunbird is not even a complete piece of software. Last time I used it, not all the menu buttons even did anything. (This was a known problem.) I imagine on a Windows system, where one app crashing can bring down the system, it is a lot more annoying.
I hate Microsoft Windows as much as the next guy, but Outlook has them beat. If only it worked on Linux.
Le français vous intéresse?
We're just in the process of migrating most of our users from Outlook to Thunderbird and I have to say, natively being able to read the MS-TNEF format (i.e. anything in Outlook Rich-Text Format) would do a lot to help here. Someone write an extension, or even better something server-side for Exim!
And yes, I know that you can get convertors which take the winmail.dat file and sort it for you, but that's not the best solution.
I'd have to agree with this. I use an iPaq, and although I'd love to get away from M$ as a client, at the moment I find there is no real viable alternative that has all the equivalent synching functionality. Of course, the PDA is the only reason I use Outlook at all.
Why do you need a calendar, I was under the impression Outlook was used 99% of the time as a mail client.
My main clients are architects. They are all heavily dependant on Outlook as their primary project management tool -- email, calendar, etc.
I tried to convince them that Outlook is the world's worst spreader of viral mayhem. They agreed in principle, but were unwilling to give up Outlook. Reason: they're already heavily invested in knowing and using Outlook -- switching would be too much work, too disruptive.
Grr.
- kgj
-kgj
I'd love to see an integration between some kind of OneNote (or WebNote [bright color warning - shield your eyes]) replacement instead of a calendar.
.xpi) of an app like that?
Free-form notes, easily sortable and searchable would be a killer app, not another dumb calendar. Maybe a calendar tied in with THAT would make it the ultimate?
Is there any thought (or already some kind of
SYS 64738 NO CARRIER
The reason why a lot of people use outlook because it works with Exchange, And people stick with exchange because everyone uses outlook. The way that opensource projects seem to really take over is by making them compatible enough to work quitly in the buisness infrastructure untill one day they realize that they are using more then they thought. I rember back in the late 90s when Linux just started to become notices as a professional OS. It was an Issue where the CTO sware that they are a Windows Only Shop where Linux was actually running in the background without anyone noticing it. The Same with Firefox (althout a lot faster, because there is a less of a risk installing an other Web Browser) but people put Mozilla and firefox on their system and shortly after they realized that more people were using it and the fact they are better off because of it. When you are moving to a different platform by yourslef you will have to realize that IT will not support your decision so if you use Thunderbird for email and it doesn't get data from the exchange or you miss an appointment because you can't view the calander it is your fault for using incompatible software.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
The only reason I am not using sunbird, or another OSS Personal organization tool is that yahoo doesn't support iCal ( I have written to them suggesting it:c k).
http://add.yahoo.com/fast/help/my/cgi_feedba
Even though I like downloading my email I use yahoo because the convenience of getting to my information anywhere is compelling.
I even pay ( gladly ) for pop access
I would love to use the sunbird client and the other OSS PIM tools in combination with yahoo so that I could download ( and update ) my PIM stuff anywhere.
Even more, I would love to pay GNU or some other OSS org for this rather then paying yahoo.
If GNU or another OSS org implemented this kind of yahoo-like service ( using all OS software ) it would kill 4 birds with one Free(dom) software stone.
1. I get the services I want
2. GNU gets money, which it always needs
3. GNU employs programmers to build an maintain
GNUYahoo ( GNUwho ? ) -- a worthy thing these
days in itself
4. Free(dom) & OS software gets showcased and put
into use.
Almost Geeks have some sort of webmail account and would love to support GNU or another OSS org rather then ________, especially if they implement featurs geeks want like better spam filtering.
If these sites were made user friendly GNU would get a bonus____ giving something to ordinary people that they would like____ which would make GNU, as well as Free(dom) software relevant to their lives.
GNU and OSS especially needs this if they want to fight and win political battles.
Just a thought
Did anyone else read this article and think that Mozilla was coming out with a combined Mail+Calendar called Lightning? Even the slashdot link title removes the 's, talk about misleading...
Oh, and for all you M$ fanboys: Microsoft is going to unbundle Media Player by January. So, in 9 days over the Christmas and New Year's holidays, Microsoft is going to be able to unbundle Media Player from the OS? Boy, it must have been really tightly integrated, eh?
I don't get what you're saying.
I don't think MS ever claimed it was tightly integrated, did they? There's no reason they can't just strip the app and leave all the underlying APIs and ActiveX objects - in fact they'd be irresponsible if the gutted them out too, it'd break loads of applications e.g. the copying animation in explorer.
So what's your point?
That an important part of the licensing cost for Exchange is the Client Access License (CAL) - this means regardless of what you pay for the code that runs on your desktop, you still need to pay Microsoft a non-trivial amount of cash for the privilege.
The fix is to provide a seamless migration to a non-exchange server with a calendar-sharing mechanism.
Now that I think of it, when MS was looking to de-throne NetWare, they created a utility that allowed Windows users to see NetWare shares through a single login account on the NetWare box.
This meant that customers could 'upgrade' to Windows and not need to but any more client licenses for Novell.
I wonder if we should find a way to enable calendar browsing via some sort of mechanism that exploits only a single CAL so that uses of the free server side could see Outlook/Exhange calendars without paying CALs for all of the free server users.
Just like the Microsoft mechanism, this needs to be seamless and transparent - to make migration to free software easy and painless.
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?
The sooner the open source community develops a calendar client that is fully integrated with an open source groupware server, the sooner we will be able to mount a credible challenge against Outlook.
Reduce people's dependency on Outlook and it'll become much, much easier to topple Exchange. Topple Exchange and you've got a good chance at completely removing Microsoft from the server room!
Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!
"Thunder is good, thunder is impressive, but it is *lightning* that does the work..."
I don't mean to insult but how many people are in your business? How many offices? For a small office where everyone is within shouting distance, there isn't much need for email/calendaring clients that talk. My consulting biz runs exchange but only because it was free(action pack). Depending on the type of business, an organization with more (~15 or so) people and with more than one office, it (can) rapidly becomes crucial. I do a lot of work with Title companies (place where you sign papers to settle on house) and many times they have several offices but share guys that roam around and do the actual closings. Our largest has 35 offices in various states. Integrated calendars are crucial.
I suppose we could switch them to a web-based calendar deal but Exchange provides that already with OWA so why go to the bother? Inter-office email rides the VPN so sensitive stuff can be sent without having to teach all the ding-dongs about encryption. In addition, there are some great add-ons for exchange that do some really cool stuff with exchange calendars (team calendar by MS is one).
The other thing about exchange is the centralized storage of email/calendar/contact data. I don't have to worry about backing up 10-20 seperate pst/mbx/dbx/whatever email files. There are automated ways of backing up these files but you might (or might not) be surprised at how often users can fuck that up.
I will grant you this though: for many businesses the genesis of a new exchange installation is due to a new employee who used to work someplace else and simply can't do without it. Even when the $$thousands spent on purchase and implementation would pay for a web solution for years to come. In this much it is psychological.
Of course some companies, e.g. SuSE, have been offering this for some time. A dedicated distribution for a corporate mailserver, even with Exchange-compatible protocol, and a setup and configuration center to manage it all.
Greetings,
e +O utlook/2100-7344_3-5501618.html
Since it appears that Thunderbird + Firebird now wants to compete more with Outlook, I'd like to propose an approach that may make this possible. Microsoft's comments here:
http://news.com.com/Mozillas+Lightning+to+strik
Are valid to a certain extent. People have come to demand more from "PIM" applications. Assuming Thunderbird and Sunbird were successfully integrated, that alone is not enough to compete with Outlook + Exchange. People want their data seemlessly synced up to all interfaces in which they access it. Exchange provides this currently. If I run Exchange and I can access my email, calendar, and contacts from Outlook, Outlook Web Access, and portable devices (i.e. phones and pdas) that offer Exchange plugins (i.e. http://www.microsoft.com/windowsmobile/) and everything "just works" seemlessly.
I believe the same can be said for Thunderbird + Sunbird without too much effort. Obviously, Thunderbird + Sunbird is just part of the solution in my above example and I am not proposing that the Mozilla foundation tries to build all the software for the whole solution. I am proposing that we come up with a viable solution to integrate all interfaces in which people access email, calendar data, contact data, todo lists, etc. on their primary PIM app, web based PIM interfaces, and mobile devices.
First lets take a look at what we have today: IMAP4 basically takes care of email for us, LDAP to a certain extent handles contacts, and ICAL over WebDAV handles calendar and todo list issues. I am not proposing that these interfaces are abandoned (especially IMAP) - but I would like to propose an alternative that may offer an easier way to reach our end goal of complete PIM data integration. I'm not saying that LDAP and and ICAL over WebDAV are bad - I just don't think they are going to offer a solution that can compete with Outlook + Exchange.
I think SyncML (http://www.openmobilealliance.org/syncml) offers a viable alternative that could relatively easily be bolted on to Thunderbird + Sunbird. SyncML offers the following benefits from my viewpoint:
* Open standard that already has a lot of traction. For example, it
is part of the WAP 2.0 standard so 90% of the cell phones you can
buy today already support synchronizing contacts, calendars, todo
lists over HTTP/SyncML. Also, many cell phones are now offering
email clients with IMAP support.
* To really compete with Outlook + Exchange, Thunderbird + Sunbird
will need to support Exchange. This is possible over SyncML and
this open source project: http://sync4j.funambol.com/.
* SyncML support should be there soon for the two most popular open
source web mail clients: IMP (http://www.horde.org/imp/) and
Squirrelmail (http://squirrelmail.org/). For example, IMP is
working on this already: http://www.horde.org/sync and a
Squirrelmail plugin to support SyncML should be easy enough to
write assuming Squirrelmail rolls out support for decent Calendar
and Contacts (already in CVS for both)
Furthermore, the Mozilla Foundation could host documentation for sys admins on how to setup Exchange integration over SyncML etc. A comprehensive HowTo would almost be a requirement since we are tying multiple software projects together in order to offer rich PIM client + Webmail + Mobile device integration.
Anyways, I am just brain-storming here and thought I would share this idea since this appears to be a topic of focus recently. It would appear to me that this would be the path of least resistance to offer a solution that can compete with Outlook + Exchange.
One thing works in our favour: Opensource isn't hamstrung by the CS ethic of a yearly release cycle.
During 2004, Thunderbird went from 0.7.x to 1.0, releases which as well as tidying up a lot of residual glitches which were never fixed in Netscape-Mozilla due to the small user-base, added serious new functionality
Release often, build public nightlies, involve the end user in the development/testing/reporting process and you can progress a great deal faster than in a closed testing system where you have to introduce many new features together to a firm timetable.
It also helps that the people behind Lightning are aiming to clone the competitor's functionality rather than develop new uses for their application, it saves a lot of time conceptualising and researching.
I use Thunderbird and Sunbird already: I migrated to it from Outlook 2002 and will stick with TB until something better comes along, Lightning may just be that development as I've long hoped for integration of Calendar and Mail into one app. (without using the Suite, I mean) They aren't, perhaps, as mature as Outlook was but the rate of development has been amazing.
I have been a user for about 10 years. This ends Feb 2014. The site's been ruined. I'm off. Dice, FU
I've seen Microsoft Windows 2000 crash by running a program running as a user (not Administrator). A friend of mine was running a Nintendo64 emulator (which was running a colorful scrolling text demo that also played music). It worked for a few minutes, and then the entire OS went down. Why the OS crashed wasn't apparent without running a debugger, but since we didn't care that much to learn what apparently buggy system calls were being made, we didn't pursue this any further. I don't think simply stating that Microsoft Windows 2000 or XP cannot be crashed by a single application is worth +4 Informative.
Digital Citizen