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Corporate Email Clients Reviewed
An anonymous reader writes "Some companies seem to take the easy way out by depending solely on Microsoft for their email needs. To all IT managers who want to breathe easier, however, there are about eight alternatives in the market today, including Barca, Calypso, Eudora, Lotus Notes, Pegasus, Pine, The Bat and Mozilla Thunderbird--all featured in this review."
TBird's got potential, and I've tried switching to it a few times. But until it's a good deal more mature it's not going to rival Outlook.
Some companies seem to take the easy way out by depending solely on Microsoft for their email needs.
That has alot to do with the fact that the dominant "email client" does so much more then just email, wheras most of the programs which are presented in the list are just email clients.
I really wish there were more alternatives, or even groupware products which use more open standards which would allow alternative clients to connect to the servers.
94% of Repubs and 21% of Dems voted to renew the Patriot Act
Both The Bat and PocoMail (the email component of Barca) have buggy and incomplete IMAP support, and the IMAP implementation in MS Outlook is prone to some really weird quirks that can render it unusable with certain IMAP servers. I haven't personally used Eudora or Pegasus, so I can't vouch for either of them, but Thunderbird and Pine both have excellent IMAP support.
However, despite being an excellent IMAP client, Thunderbird still lacks support for mail redirect, a basic feature of most mail clients and one that is frequently used in corporate environments.
If you don't include Outlook (well, this is corporate, so the comparison is Exchange, an entirely different beast from Outlook) in the comparison?! Sure look at the competition but compare feature with feature, I found this article odd that they didn't objectively review the target: Outlook/Exchange
My Take on Exchange
As much as I dislike Outlook as an email client, it is an OK email/shared calender/shared resource platform.
My company used to use Novell Groupwise which was OK from a user perspective but not great. Now we use Exchange and it is mainly better from a user perspective (the odd thing is inferior, like new email alerts).
I have email, I have a calender on a personal, group, ad-hoc group and organisational basis, I have easy integration with my mobile phone/PDA, I have easy integration with out document mnagement system. It is all easy from a user perspective.
Exchange admins do their job well, security and network personnel find it an improvement as easy to look after.
Sure there is a charge, but seamless operation for users and a straightforward system for admins is worth paying for.
Lock-in? They're all plain text/HTML emails and saved/transferrable as such, the calender is exportable as plain text - pretty OK compared to the properitery nature of Excel or VBA macros, something to make more of a fuss about.
The 'editors choice': It would be absolutely great if Thunderbird had a decent calender and PIM, Mozilla is great. But at the moment it doesn't even have a daemon to alert of appointments. What a joke.
I use Firebird as my home-based web client. I do not use it, or feel the need for it, in an organisation which parses every packet for malicious code, has many full time security and network professionals and stays on the cutting edge of security. Sure not day0, but that's the definition.
Think about the user: I am a user with an IT skill/interest but not operational function, I'm happy about that.
Perhaps my company is one of the better of the pack, we even have quantum crypto links with affiliates. But we are 'enterprise' and Exhange/Outlook offers an excellent deal and little lock in, which is good enough.
The terms "Lotus Notes" and "breath easier" are generally not seen together unless the topic is moving away from it.
It also has some of the WORST HTML compliance / rendering of any application I have ever seen. Just do a google search for "lotus notes html email".
Please anything but. (well, maybe not Outlook...)
One of the main benefits to using Outlook is the groupware features. The abilty to use it as an email client is usually the second reason, behind the calendering system combined with email client reason. Comparing Outlook to Lotus Notes or Novell Groupware makes a lot more sense then Pine, The Bat! or the majority of other email clients "reviewed".
*cough* Pine is NOT a corporate email solution.