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Mozilla and Google — Exchange Killers At Last?
phase_9 writes "The latest version of Mozilla Thunderbird may still only be in beta but already the user community have started creating an extensive set of viable Exchange killers. One such example is the latest mashup between Thunderbird and Google Calendars, providing bi-directional syncing of calendar information from both the client and internet. How long will it be before open-source software can provide a complete, accessible office suite for a fraction of the cost that Microsoft current imposes?"
I thought Evolution already did this.
Thanks, but I'll stick to girls and Exchange.
"One such example is the latest mashup between Thunderbird and Google Calendars [CC], providing bi-directional syncing of calendar information from both the client and internet. How long will it be before open-source software can provide a complete, accessible office suite for a fraction of the cost that Microsoft current impose?"
When Google builds an appliance that can host the apps locally. I am not going to put my companies email on a Google server across the Internet. Google needs to wake up and build an appliance that can be hosted locally within the bounds of a company's perimeter.
One end of the continuum, I'll call "type 1:"
Replaces important functionality of the product
The other end, I'll call "type 2:"
Replaces the product
Type 2 means among other things your users won't notice any functional differences and the new product can read and write the old product's files perfectly and/or there is a perfect two-way file-translator available.
Type 2 is rare unless the product is designed around an open specification. For example, some implementations of "gzip" or "cat" are type-2 replacements of each other.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
I used to hate webmail. Thunderbird (Netscape mail before this) was a staple on my desktop. Today, I hate mail apps. Why have a mail app using resources when your browser is open already and webmail (today) works great already?
I have Outlook/Exchange at work, but I use Firefox/OWA instead.
If my browser is open, I prefer to use it.
I for one welcome our new spellcheck-less Exhchange overlords.
next generation PIM suites should be the goal, which exchange falls far short of.
is anyone from the Chandler (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandler_(PIM)) team looking into integrating efforts here?
Until my boss can set appointments on my calendar for me, and until anyone in my company can view my calendar (but not anyone outside my company...), I'll still (unfortunately) be forced to have a PC running whose only purpose is to run outlook.
Speaking as someone at a company who tried very hard for a very long time to 'replace' exchange with OSS, i'll tell you it can't be done. Any kind of mix&match of software and jerryrigging of protocols may, kinda, sorta come close to offering approximately the same sort of capabilities of exchange. However, there will be caveats and gotchas, and all sorts of limitations that joe-users won't put up with or understand having to put up with.
Remember, you have exchange for the company environment, not for just your dev team. And as hard as it may be to admit, exhange+outlook actually functions very well when it's set up and admin'd properly.
One other thing: i know the whole setup is expensive, in terms of hardware and software and licenses. One can argue, that if your company can't afford the outlay for a working exchange environment, your company doesn't need it, and it would probably be a waste of time trying to replicate its features. So call a spade a spade; say you want OSS shared calendars, tasks, e-mail, whatever. But that alone is certainly NOT an exchange replacement.
They will never match all the features in Microsoft's Office suite.
Once upon a time Lotus Notes was available for Unix. It did all the stuff tfa talks about. (I realize that lots of people don't like Lotus Notes and thereby I don my flameproof suit) What would it take to get IBM to open source Lotus Notes? I haven't used it in ten years but my rememberance of it was that it could do amazing things. Certainly if it were open sourced we wouldn't have to worry about whether Mozilla could produce something with the capabilities of Microsoft's products.
Um... really. I think an enormous percentage of those using the full Microsoft Office suite (with Exchange etc) would disagree with you.
There's nothing out there that can match the usability of Exchange/Office. It's a sad reality, because Exchange/Office is fucking expensive.
"It is possible to commit no errors and still lose. That is not a weakness. That is life." -Peak Performance
Yes, until Google offers an in-house version of their tools (a server that sits at my office) my business won't move to Google. Despite how much I like it.
I need to know that my businesses information is confidential. And, by having it sit at Google just it isn't.
Plus, even with businesses where confidentially is desired but optional, you have plenty of businesses where it is not optional but legal required (lawyer, doctor, etc.). Legally they don't even have the option of using Google's tools.
Although much beloved here at Slashdot, Google is not open source. They are a private, for-profit corporation that happens to have some free APIs. Putting Google and Mozilla in the same category is disingenuous.
...unless those apps are going to also integrate with MS Office.
This isn't a threat to Exhange by no stretch of the imagination. Once Exchange is entrenched into an environment; you better have clients that can connect to the server. If you want to take Exchange down; you need clients that can connect and share calendars on and off of Exchange.
Business won't outsource their Exchange functionality to a free service. Perhaps this may fly with Google calendar; but somehow I just don't see it.
but until stuff syncs with Outlook, it has no change of defeating it.
I'm not a huge fan of MS, but it's nice that external people can send you stuff (as they use Outlook) and it'll appear in your company outlook calendar.
Sooo if you want to defeat Outlook you've got to produce something that replicates outlook's functionality. I don't care what the other company is using, I just care it works with my outlook (or vica-versa).
Basically my point is we live in an Outlook eco-system. If you want to displace it, then you can't just ignore it and do your own thing (e.g. Mozilla+Google).
If my employer is any indication, Notes is still a big source of revenue for IBM, so I can't see them giving that up. My guess is that there is also a good deal of code in there with various copyright owners.
And of course, Lotus Notes is what software would be like if it was written by Satan.
I give it a chance, then eventually god fed up with it. I went back to Office. ActiveSync is a MUST.
http://www.rense.com/general79/wdx1.htm
"What bothers me is that there seems to be a definite trend to try and move away from Microsoft controlled solutions to ones either controlled or assisted by Google."
You raise a good point and I agree. I was just directly addressing the idea of Google/Thunderbird being an Exchange replacement that the poster seemed to be inferring.
I've never noticed anything in outlook/exchange that makes it noticeably superior to up and coming alternatives. The only thing keeping Outlook in the picture is it's ties to the rest of the Office suite, noticeably Excel and Word, for which there are no viable replacements at this time for serious users (please don't say Open Office, it's like saying The Gimp is a viable alternative to Photoshop for professionals).
Similes are like metaphors
You should look at Zimbra. They are a new company working on solving just this problem. It's pretty damn good too. www.zimbra.com We've installed and tested it and with the ability to support both pop and webmail clients, it's a pretty good choice. The calendaring is also very close to exchange and it even syncs with iCal and other non-MS calendaring systems. They have some huge Fortune 500 clients too... I think they have some extensive demos on their website.
It's not about when will Google/Mozilla replace Microsoft Office in usability. That's already happened.
It has? Did I miss a memo or something?
As interesting and featureful as the alternatives to MsOffice are, they are nowhere near gaining sufficient market penetration for the average office user to be using them instead of MsOffice. I think that'll take a teensy bit longer.
And the online google spreadsheet/office package is a bit too basic just yet for mainstream use. You can't even embed charts in the spreadsheet, a bit of a drawback that.
I honestly think Microsoft will start handing out free cut down versions of MsOffice (as in like office 97 level of functionality) if OpenOffice/Google and co become a serious threat. No doubt with some seriously gay restrictions, like how many documents can be open, number of fonts or something.
As a few have already stated, this is a good idea for a single user, but it may be tricky for collaborative scheduling.
Another opensource solution that has piqued my interest is zimbra, which includes collaborative e-mail, scheduling and many other groupware functions. All the functions work through a web interface as well, but they're now developing zdesktop to allow on- and off-line sync/viewing of e-mail, scheduling as so on. It's in alpha, however. There are also programs to use on your mobile devices.
I haven't used this system myself, but I'd be interested in any thoughts from sys admins that have successfully (or unsuccessfully) implemented this.
>Firefox 2 is years ahead of IE7. Firefox 3 will be light years ahead
Um, Dude - a light year isn't a measure of time.
Products like Zimbra and Scalix are mostly open source, but their MAPI/Outlook components aren't. OSER was a grass-roots project aimed at developing open source MAPI-support, but has recently been put on hold by the developers.
It might be fair to say that if you have clients using Outlook you shouldn't complain about coughing up cash to have them connect to your exchange-replacement, but after all these years there (to my knowledge) isn't a fully-compatible server-side open source Exchange replacement.
Mozilla and Google? Yeah right. Tell that to a manager with 500 Outlook-using drones.
This sig is intentionally left blank
20 years have proven that simply having better products is not enough.
Remember: the idiots are still in charge of I.T.
I've seen this time and again. I.T. groups in many, many, many companies are filled with Microsoft apologists who simply don't go to the effort to even find better solutions, much less adopt them. They just buy Microsoft, keep their jobs (even getting bonuses), and continue to siphon far too much money for computer products.
You need two things to dethrone Microsoft. First, open-minded people in charge of I.T. who genuinely work at finding better solutions for the price. Second, you must have management willing to accept risk and not fire the open-minded people if their first transition away from Microsoft doesn't go as planned.
"Microsoft killed my company, I hold a personal grudge. I don't use Microsoft products and neither should you."-JWZ
About 5 years ago. While it's true that there's no one stop solution, with some poking around sourceforge you can easily replace every app that MS Office comes with (Save for PowerPoint; there may be some PP alternatives out there, but I never use PP anymore, Flash is much more effective for presentations at the expense of it taking slightly longer). Open source stuff is a little bit harder to come by than just normal freeware, though if you keep on digging you'll eventually hit gold.
Does anyone here have the first clue what Exchange actually does?
No, I thought not.
Are we so sure that Google will always be nice?
No, but we don't have to.
Do we want our online office and email to become dependant on yet another single vendor?
The problem with Microsoft has not been that they have been a single monopolistic vendor, the problem has been that once you are on Microsoft platforms, the cost of switching away is very high. A secondary problem has been that many people simply don't like the way Microsoft's products work.
So far, Google has been very open: you can import and export your mail fully, and if you register a domain through some registrar, you can easily switch E-mail providers. As soon as Google becomes monopolistic, there will be howls of protest and you will know about it and have enough time to pick a different company.
Of course, there is some risk that Google becomes so predominant that there will simply be no alternatives to switch to, but I don't see that happening. That has never even happened with Microsoft; there have always been alternatives, it's simply been too costly to switch.
So, my policy is to use Google for the time being, but watch them closely and leave if either something better comes along, or if it ever looks like they are going to make it hard to leave.
I am not going to put my companies email on a Google server across the Internet.
Why not? Your company's email already travels openly and usually unencrypted across the Internet, ready for dozens of hosts to capture and analyze. Furthermore, data retention and auditing guidelines mean that your corporate email has to be archived and accessible to authorities anyway.
I can see choosing not to use Google (or Yahoo or Hotmail) for personal or private E-mail, but for hosted corporate E-mail, I see little reason not to.
Of course, most people tend to think of it the other way around, but I think they're getting it backwards.
Why use Thunderbird instead of Mozilla Sunbird? I use Sunbird all the time...I really like it.
ZuluPad, the wiki notepad on crack
I find GTDmail (www.gtdmail.com) a far more interesting mash-up, giving me functionality that I currently can't easily get in Thunderbird.
Maybe TB 2.0 will have sufficient tagging capabilities, but what TB really needs is far easier user-scripting and a built-in script editor. You know, like Greasemonkey only better and specifically for Thunderbird.
Yer nothing like loosing yr emails soo often...
TFA is a bit premature. Thunderbird's calendar has quite a way to go before it'll become a serious threat to anything. This is nothing against Thunderbird (it's been my mail client for years) or the calendar project, just an observation that they are pretty early along with calendars and the UI still doesn't fit really well with the application.
--Pat
I shall call it Mozoogle. Or Googzilla.
Sent from my iPhone
If you want to kill Exchange as a product, you have to make a clone, not a replacement. This is how we got $500 PCs only a few years after a time when three manufacturers sold them for $2500 each. First they made a clone, and then they branched out. If you make an Exchange clone, Microsoft should welcome the competition as it's good for the economy as a whole. I'm not anti-Microsoft by any stretch, but I like the "people power" of Open Source Software and the added security, comfort and conscience-free use it brings.
Anti-Globalism
Let me know when the Openoffice.org spreadsheet starts to approach parity with Excel. OO.org Calc 2.2 is far behind Excel 2003 (and I acknowledge that that isn't an especially high standard).
Since when is Google "open source"?
Open-source friendly, undoubtedly. Less secretive about (some of their) proprietary code than Microsoft? Sure, though that's not saying much. There's only so much secrecy obfuscated Javascript can buy you, so it's not as if they had much choice. Still, kudos to them for not only accepting that fact, but providing official APIs to some of their services.
But "open source"? Show me where I can go to submit patches to any of their core products, and maybe then I'll agree to that term. Until then, Thunderbird + Google Calendars is no more "open source" than Evolution + Exchange.
SIERRA TANGO FOXTROT UNIFORM
I doubt it will ever really happen.
There is too much integration ( vendor lockin? ) of exchange ( via outlook ) with the rest of office ( and AD, and document DRM ) for a 3rd party to ever be considered a 'killer'.
Will OSS choices be an option for a small market share that can do without the integration, sure, but not a 'killer' by any stretch of the imagination.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
As in Meeting Maker...Ick.
:-(
We schedule our data center jobs etc in MM 7.5 using the colored labels to show who did what. The 15 min intervals & large-ish daily/multi day view keep the app still in use. Add in the goofy MM formatted files & we seem to be stuck using an app that's meant for lightweight use in totally different market.
The ver 8.+ vers for MM choke on 100+ events a day & when they're scheduled to "continue forever" it makes life interesting if you try to replace the app
So you are using exchange at home too, and proving that its hard to seriously consider something else as a 'killer'.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
There is a long list of add-in products for Outlook (e.g., at slipstick) that are invaluable for me. And there are important (to me) applications that know how to work with Outlook but not other email clients. So despite all its warts, Outlook is here to stay on my PC's.
Doug Jensen
"LaTeX my friend, saying Word is a viable replacement for serious professionals is laughable"
As someone who's lived in both LaTeX and Word land, I call BS (8 years extensive LaTeX usage and currently 120 pages into a CS dissertaion in LaTeX, 8 mutually exclusive years of Word usage). LaTeX is not viable for serious professionals, no matter how often people call it a professional type-setting system.
LaTeX is about the most backwards way of producing documents there is. Compile your document before you can see the layout? What is this, 1980? Arcane, verbose commands to do simple things (text{it,bf,etc})? Might be fun for people just learning to code, but come on, the verbosity gets old fast. Build errors more difficult to debug than C++ template meta-programs? Yikes.
Yes, LaTeX does have some nice features - separate files for different parts of the document are nice as are the exensive macro expansion features - but are they really worth the hassle of dealing with the system? I use LaTeX over Word for one reason: Word can't number references, figures, and tables correctly. Unfortunately, for academic writing in CS (where they insist on [1] instead of [Smith 1994]), this is a deal breaker.
Of course, in using LaTeX, I've given up the ability to have precise control over the location of figures in my documents (trivial in Word, barely possible and not worth the effort in LaTeX). I've resigned myself to the fact that at some point during document preparation, something will go horribly wrong and I will lose half a day trying to debug LaTeX. I've accepted the fact that conference organizers will continue to give me broken style files and then complain when the formatting is a little off. I know that if anyone needs an editable copy of my document, I will have to spend a day converting it to Word. And so on...
I would happily pay for a good word processor that worked almost like Word, but got the numbering and modularity features correct (hint: Framemaker before Adobe killed it). Open Source has had at least 20 years to get this right with LaTeX (and no, none of the WYSYWIG LaTeX tools cut it) and just keeps happilly saying LaTeX is professional without ever bothering to evolve it out of the 1980s.
-Chris
I respect what you are saying. But consider this if you will.... ...what you consider to be "agendas" is just a genuine desire to rid the IT land of the scourge of Microsoft. They're a destroyer of technology. Seeing as how a lot of OSS folks LOVE technology this is a sensible position to take. I find it hard to believe that Google at its worst could match Microsoft on its most benevolent day. It would require a major reworking of Google's DNA. Microsoft from the get-go has been all about locking up technology and making sure its not open. Anyone remember Bill Gate's letter to free software developers over 25 years ago?
I'm sure the agenda puts off many more than just you, but thats because most folks are 'don't rock the boat' types. Thats ok, I get it. The problem is that there really isn't a future for technology while Microsoft remains dominant. Its so disheartening for those who love technology to have to go to work and deal with Microsoft Windows and Microsoft SQL Server or Microsoft Internet Information Server or Microsoft Exchange.......etc. For those who don't really care about superior quality again its not a big deal for them. But there was a time when IT was about more than just "getting the job done". This is the disgust and anger that feeds the anti-Microsoft sentiment.
Google has engendered nothing like this. For the love of God YES YES YES I would love for Google and Microsoft to trade places in the marketplace. All I ask is that you MIGHTILY resist the urge that all humans have to be suspicious of anything that grows big, such as Google has. Yes they're a corporation. Yes they're in it for the money. But they manage to do it by embracing technology and providing it to a wider base of users for FREE. They can data mine every second of my life if thats all they ask in return.
Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
There are great solutions out there for cheap or for free that replace a lot of functionality of Outlook/Exchange. The problem is, compatibility to migrate and user adoption.
The compatibility to migrate is: you can't just copy the data from one server to another because of it's proprietary layout. It was a bad choice in the past and it's now rearing it's ugly head.
The other, user adoption is simple: people don't like change. I've been fired before because I implemented changes in security according to SoX! That company still is not SoX compliant and won't be for a long time, just because the policy changes (disabling auto-login on workstations, locking up after the workday, separating and securing financially sensitive data) are not according to what users want. And it's not the end-user drones, they will accept ANY change, it's the middle-management, people that have been there for 30+ years, micromanaging 10 people, and don't want to change because that would imply that they will actually have to manage something.
I have my personal e-mail and calendar on IMAP, have done it for years. It works on my Mac, Windows, Linux and it works on any system I come. I just point my mailbox to the server and point my calendar to another IMAP folder. Most clients support iCal (Outlook, SharePoint etc. also use iCal, just the wrapper to store it and server-client communication is proprietary). I have implemented similar solutions and it all works, they have shared calendars, e-mail and all the works you can get from Exchange it's open so they can change systems whenever they want, it's cheaper than Exchange and requires less resources.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely the more google grows the less i trust it
You might look at Kerio KMS. It has the Calendar portion of Exchange. I can share my calendar and grant varied authorities. It also has shared contacts, tasks, and notes. At a fraction of Exchange's price.
That's what we use. It even supports ActiveSync OTA with cell phones. It doesn't do everything that Exchange does, but for what it costs it's awesome. The price for this with antivirus was 1/7th what Microsoft wanted for Exchange, not taking into the account of the loss of Outlook licenses. But we already had that with Office.
It works with Mac and other OSes, and the webmail piece is very nice.
Don't you read the posts before you make your own? Have you read the hundreds of (correct) posters that have said that there is no OSS equivalent to Outlook/Exchange?
I don't respond to AC's.
"Why is it suddenly the goal of OSS is to defeat MS?"..
I can give you one *fantastic* reason. If you are in the US, just about every good and service you pay for comes with a parasitical burden of a microsoft tax hidden inside. Either from the private sector in commerce, or in your various and overlapping tax bills, a chunk of your loot goes to MS-whether you want it to or not. THAT is reason enough to lobby and work hard against their continued parasitism of the economy. My opinion, but I think they have sucked enough billions out of everyone's pockets. Their economic business model is now the "broken windows" scenario, which I think is hilariously well named in this instance. It is a net drain on the economy.
People say "well, if you don't want to run MS OS and associated apps, then don't!" OK,I'd like to do that, I don't directly run it myself, but how about when you are forced to keep paying for it for decades? Business is politics, like it or not, the politics of a lot of people's pocketbooks would be better off without that direct or hidden wallet tax that goes to them, let alone the annoyance "tax" of windows derived mass zombie spewed SPAM, malwarez, etc.. I'd love to not have to run MS anything, but am forced to by second hand and onwards inertial economic proxy. And pay for that "privilege". Gee...whattadeal..NOT!
See, you can't just decide not to run it when it's involved in most every aspect of modern tech life, and that involves business, and business is tied to politics.
That is one of the many goals of FOSS, to eliminate unnecessary expense and burden.
I'll admit at one time I think they were necessary for the microcomputer revolution-but not now, not 2007. They should be happy with all the billions and billions they have made. I'd like to see society move on. Like the buggywhip middleman salesmen of the MAFIAA, their services are just about completely no longer needed, so the collective "we" shouldn't have to keep paying for them.
Google isn't Open Source. It's like Microsoft, except instead of locking your data up in proprietary formats, they keep it locked up on their servers.
Neither does Microsoft. They're pretty sure it involves patches, though.
Judging from the posts here I imagine replacing Exchange is more of a chew your arm off escape than a found a better girl kind of choice.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Off the top of my head there's Zimbra, Citadel, the dozens of groupware projects on freshmeat, and Google's offerings (though not OSS, free and very good). And that's just off the top of my head...
If an officer ever threatens to taze you, say you have a pacemaker.
Ironically, usability is the last thing Outlook is good at. Word and Excel are far more usable than things like OpenOffice, but Outlook's usability is atrocious compared to many other mail clients. What there isn't, yet, is anything that can (a) match the features of the Outlook+Exchange combination, and (b) reliably migrate all the existing data from the Microsoft products to the alternative.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
I wish I had my mod points :-) +1 Funny for you
(you aren't serious, right?)
I use the "2000" version of some Microsoft products (windows, office/outlook/exchange) at work and "usability" was OK when these products were first launched.
Nowadays, a powerful search feature is essential to me (and probably everyone). I have only 40Mb of mailbox space in my company (a financial institution). So, I have about 20 PST files, one for each "folder" in Inbox tree (you know, if you keep everything in one huge PST file, it will corrupt sooner or later). Did you know Outlook can't do a search in all of these PST's at once? You have to execute the search 20 times, one per PST file... Is this what you call usability (this was the first thing that came to my mind, but I can list others if you want) ?
ilex paraguariensis for all
Well, I'd say that the WYSIWYG tools cut it. But it is quite hard do comment on your unbased oppinion.
About the rest, I don't tend to have problems with verbhosity because I spend more time thinking about what I'm writting than really writting it (maybe you can think faster, or has simpler things to write), even more when writting academical papers, where people will complain about every small mistake.
I've only a few times gotten those hard to debug build errors, but lots of times Word has changed the position of my figures, sent them to the very end of the documment of hidden behind some text. That takes almost as much time to solve. Not to say that lots of times Word has simply created a document too big for dealing with (it's easy to get a hundreds of megabytes big document), and one can't simply debug them. Hint, don't try to write your books on Word, ok?
Macro expansion is overrated, but the troubles on using them are also so. It's very usefull when you have to wite several documents all alike (ok, that is not common for most people). And LaTeX will enforce your template, so if you create a template and share with the rest of your organization, people will follow it (I'm really missing this feature now that I work with Word). With Word's templates you simply take your chances, even because you can't really describe some things on them.
And, yes, there is no precise placement of figures and tables. They are normaly well placed for books and articles but not so much for short memos. Now, if your boss complains about the placement of stuff on short memos, that is not really a problem with LaTeX, although being very common so it would be nice to solve. And why you convert LaTeX to Word when people ask you for a editable copy? (Why people using uncompatible tools are asking for editable copies? And why they have so much power that it's YOU who must convert them?) Not a problem with LaTeX either, but very common too, so it'd be nice if we could do something about it (we can't, because they are using Microsoft).
Rethinking email
Lotus Domino (the "Exchange" part of Lotus Notes) is still available for Unix (AIX and Solaris) Linux and Windows. And IBM still makes money selling it, though not as much as they did.
The Lotus Notes client (the "Outlook" part) is available on Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux (depending on distro.) And IBM still makes money selling it, though not as much as they did.
And yes, it can do some amazing things. But with an awful, awful UI and only middling cross-platform feature parity.
The US free market: two halves of a government-granted duopoly are free to set the market price.
That mentality always puzzled me: "we don't want the machines sitting in someone else's building"
They're still sitting in *a *building, and that building has to be secured. Does your widget production company know more about security than people who make billions running data centers?
Also, what if there is a breach? If you were handling all that precious data, you're fscked. If you had a contract with another company, you might have recourse to get damages -- if there was negligence, of course.
Note: I'm not an expert in security but I hear this line a lot, and it never sounded well thought-out to me.
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
Doesnt replace all the features of Exchange.
I never said there wernt lesser alternatives, i just dont see them replacing exchange in most large Microsoft based shops in the foreseeable future. ( my defintion of 'killer' ).
And before you call me a microsoftee.. I refuse to run anything Microsoft based at home, and i have in the past supported (nearly) microsoft-free zones. I just am wiling to accept they own the market for all practical purposes, and a hodgepodge of tools that gets you about 2/3 of the way there isnt going to change that.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
>>Firefox 2 is years ahead of IE7. Firefox 3 will be light years ahead
>Um, Dude - a light year isn't a measure of time.
Sure it is, its a year!
--Nuintari
slashdot : where an opinion can be wrong.
2. Why is it suddenly the goal of OSS is to defeat MS? Can't we just keep making OSS for the sake of making software? This shit is too agenda-driven for me.
This is what the media does to draw in readers. To some extent, I'd say it's natural to pick a competitor to overtake if you are trying to make a business.
I wish the spirit of your comment would sink into nearly everyone with an interest in Linux. It would only lead to more innovation and an even more diverse linux/bsd ecosphere.
It's important to remember the typical Exchange-buying PHB won't even consider alternatives.
Today's lesson: making an exchange killer won't benefit many users. sticking to your knitting will make a great something. That's for sure. Case in point, xfce4 in debian etch. Surprised the hell out of me. Pretty intuitive, easy-ish to use.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
"Speaking as someone at a company who tried very hard for a very long time to 'replace' exchange with OSS, i'll tell you it can't be done. Any kind of mix&match of software and jerryrigging of protocols may, kinda, sorta come close to offering approximately the same sort of capabilities of exchange. However, there will be caveats and gotchas, and all sorts of limitations that joe-users won't put up with or understand having to put up with."
I'm wondering how much of this issue is simply the blind-spot that everyone seems to have towards MS and it's products?* It's kind of hard to make an equivalent let alone something better if one has no experience (or a hostile one) with the original. Just look at the "Ask Slashdot" that was looking for a Groove replacement. I wonder how much "I don't like XML" played in that?
*The other blind-spot is that "money is evil". Even though "for profit" has been shown to do some things better than the "free" model. e.g. tax software.
they believe there is room for only one internet the public one we have now and a secure one they are thinking about hell there should be an open sores one too.
Having experienced the reaction in our office to the thought of trying Thunderbird instead of Outlook (which was technically justified due to IMAP behavioural differences), I can give the Mozilla folks a piece of advice:
Change Thunderbird's name to something that doesn't provoke laughter in the office when said. Microsoft would never name something Thunderbird - their marketing department would never hear the end of it. Some employees started referring to Thunderbird as 'Thunderpants', in case you're wondering.
Harder to debug than C++ templates? I guess it's o.k. to exaggerate sometimes. I've been using LaTeX since 1993, and have never spent an enormous amout of time debugging anything. I'm extremely curious to hear what you're doing that's causing so many problems. You have enough experience with LaTeX to know how to make things look exactly as you wish, but it seems you just can't be bothered. Would you really prefer to write that thesis in MS Word? I've seen others experience unexplained strangeness when their MS Word documents exceed 50 or so pages. My thesis (math) is already split among 10 files with revision control from the start. I can't imagine even writing one page with MS Word.
Exchange is not only purchased for technical reasons. Exchange is purchased so upper management can brag that they're running a company that's all grown up. I'd just successfully tested shared calendars using Sunbird and WebDAV when I got the call that we had to move to Exchange. There was no debate, the issue was not technical.
Word's interface, my point of reference for WYSIWYG, is much better than anything developed on LaTeX. Framemaker's was even better.
The verbostiy of LaTeX does have a negative effect on thinking. Reading LaTeX while editing requires filtering out all the formatting codes, which consumes cycles that could be used for developing the text instead. Then there are all the whole repetitive stress issues with typing too much... but the mouse in Word is just as bad in that respect.
The LaTeX build errors show up most often in collaborative environments (which is precisely where its benefits are so tantalizing). We have a fairly large lab (about 25 people at any given time) and we share a common respository for LaTeX style files, bibliographic materials, and other Tex related components. It's easy for someone to unknowningly introduce an incompatibility in the system that goes unnoticed for months or years.
When people ask for an editable copy, it's usually because they are incorporating my work into a grant or patent application. For the former, it's usually a collaborative processes with non-CS scientists who can't handle LaTeX. If I want to benefit from the grant, I have to work a little to get my content into it. For the later, lawyer's secrataries make more than academics, so it's more cost effective for us to do the conversion (sad but true). In corporate environments, the problem never arose, since everything was done in Word (including academic papers).
Anyway, I think the point I'm really after is that neither Word or LaTeX are all they're cracked up to be. Both sides blindly defend each tool as _the_ solution, ignoring their shortcomings. Unfortunately, the status quo is good enough for both camps and, given the large code bases for each tool, the cost of addressing the core issues is probably to high at this point. Which kinda ties back into the whole Exchange killer discussion: the status quo is just fine on the Exchange side and the Open Source community has to do more than just duplicate functionality to really win over new users.
-Chris
A light year is the distance light travels in one year. It's a measure of distance not time.
In order to be succesful Exchange replacement, it has to be Blackberry enabled.
Senior managers, CEOs don't care about the cost saving, they care about their Blackberry.
"The latest version . . . be in beta but already the user community have started . . . . . "
"Have started"?????
Did ANYBODY pass English grammar?
I wouldn't consider giving my data to a third party like Google. Sorry but all my business information is confidential and while Google might be able to have more guards, firewalls, and backups if I give Google information that information has already been compromised by Google.
I already run WebCalendar on my local server and it is an excellent program. But I would like to be able to tie it into lightning for calendar sharing. It doesn't work. First, the stable version of WebCalendar doesn't support publishing. The CVS version supposedly does, but while you can import a calendar into lighting, any changes you make there doesn't get published to WebCalendar. Lightning flashes a little bar, gives no errors but reloading the calendar or logging into webcalendar will show that the new changes were never uploaded.
I've never understood what is so difficult about combining email with a shared calendar. That solution alone would prevent the need to setup new exchange configurations. Most small and medium business only need integrated email and calendaring this leads them to Outlook, then they want to share calendars. That leads them to exchange.
As a developer I can't think of any great challenge involved in this (beyond not having time to write a solution myself). I have trouble believing that with (according to some EU state of FOSS paper) 2,000,000 OSS developers nobody has managed to come up with a solution for this basic fundamental and common need.
Sadly despite your problems with it, Outlook is still the easiest thing out there (I can't tell you the number of times Thunderbird has corrupted my inbox). And on a side-note, if you can get administrative privileges on your machine, someone who knows a little Access/VBA should be able to fix that search issue for you. Or better yet, you could install Copenic desktop or Google desktop, and have one of those products index your inbox (I don't know how much they cost for a commercial license, but they're free for personal use -- so at least you could try them at home).
Ripping off? The GPLv2 allows whatever Google is doing to be done! They're not disobeying any part of the license. If they were they could be sued. Simple as that. So now you want to attach imaginary wishful violations to the way they do business? Thats not based in reality pal. Also correct me if I'm wrong but haven't most of the most objectional parts of the GPLv3 been toned down as Linus Torvalds now agrees with the GPLv3? In any case Google can continue to use GPLv2 versions of Linux for its servers or even fork Linux for itself along the GPLv2 codebase and then release their own version of Linux to the world. A company with their resources could certianly do it it and I could see a bunch of people switching to Google Linux, especially if they make it even easier to use than Ubuntu is. If worse comes to worse Google could switch to FreeBSD which is what Yahoo uses.
And Google is going to keep their public/consumer services free for the simple fact that the money they make selling the information they collect on you is a lot more than they could make if they outright charged you for their services. Charging lowers the amount of people using their services which would kill their advertising business. It would be suicide. In order to rake in the billions that they're currently making they need all the users they can get and the best way to get the highest number of users is to keep their consumer services FREE!
* Whats a Burner?
As for Google dealing with despicable regimes, well so do a lot of other companies. If I didn't do business with any companies that had transactions with "questionable" people then I wouldn't be able to buy anything from anyone, ever. An argument can be made that increasing economic activity in nations like China and helping them to liberalize their markets and increase the ranks of the middle class who live there will in its own due time bring about political change once everyone there gets used to a higher standard of living instead of the mostly agrarian standard they have today or have had in the past. Stop companies from doing business there and you possibly put a stop to that progress.
Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
I don't have admin privileges to my workstation and I can't install anything on there (just admins can install things, upon request with manager's approval). As I said in the gp, I work in a financial institution, so, they are very restrictive about what you use :-(
ilex paraguariensis for all
I have seen Citadel mentioned in the past: http://www.citadel.org/doku.php
I don't know much about it - can anyone comment on whether this could work in place of Exchange?
"I object to doing things that computers can do." -- Olin Shivers, lispers.org
I've never had an outlook PST file corrupt on me. That said, Outlook Search has drastically improved (2003 was lightyears ahead of XP, 2007 is far ahead of 2003) and, while I can unequivocally opine that using Outlook XP was a nightmare on the usability side (even though most of the features were there) Outlook 2007 is, in my not-so-humble opinion, much, much improved on that front.
The last time I used Outlook 2000 was a long time ago, so I can't comment, but I went from Outlook XP (still used on about 1/2 the machines around here) to Outlook 2003, (which I used at home) to Office 2007 (everywhere). Office 2007 is a dream compared to the others. The ribbon takes a bit of getting used to, though.
"It is possible to commit no errors and still lose. That is not a weakness. That is life." -Peak Performance
Replacing Exchange for which reasons, exactly? Because it it's just in terms of features, security and stability why not Lotus Notes + iCal? Of course you have to pay for Lotus code. By in terms of shared calendars with email and application integration, there aren't many better products I can think of. The iCal piece is for web publishing if you want to go that route.
I wrote about this over a week ago. Welcome to April.
Personally, every time it shows up I sort by size and delete the biggest (typically Powerpoint presentations), but I also lose anything written in the message + the info that on date $foo I got presentation $bar. It sure as hell is better that they do it rather than messing around with it myself. I mean, Gmail can do it based on some small ad revenue, how much of a problem could it really be? Sure there's some redundancy with drafts and work documents and other things that are useless, but I think it steals more time and energy = money to sort it out than to just leave it there.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
a bunch of sucky things does not constitute non-sucky simply by weight. teh software sux going in and going out. it does not matter what you think.
With the iPhone drama and now the delay in 10.5 plus iCal server, I pray this is a replacement to Windows Mobile, Outlook, and Exchange. Please, please, please.
Do or do not. There is no try. --Yoda
Ya, but firefox et al does not integrate with business contact manager and microsoft accounting the way outlook does. also you have to do a BUNCH of programming to get the functionality of exchange. Why do all that when for a small business just load up windows small business server which comes with Exchange, ISA, SQL server, Sharepoint Services, Remote Desktop access, etc for about $600.00. you would spend more than that on development and testing on a home-brew app or OSS solution. Plus the price of SBS is taken off the price of server 2003 STD when you decide that 75 users are too few.
Oh I love this.
OSS: Use our software, please.
Former proprietary customer: OK
Former proprietary customer: Hey! This has bugs.
OSS: Well you should fix it.
Former proprietary customer: Why should I?
OSS: Well because it's OSS.
Former proprietary customer: Well my proprietary solution worked.
OSS: But you weren't free.
Former proprietary customer: Yeah, but I wasn't handicapped by a solution that was missing functionality, and buggier than an ant farm. Now you're telling me I have to fix it too?
I am aware of the definition.... it also happens to take exactly one year, just like I said, "It is a year"
I was making light of the fact that the original poster seems to think that a year, and a light year are different in terms of time passed.
--Nuintari
slashdot : where an opinion can be wrong.
Dense ?
you can replace exchange with all functionality and even more... try the postpath (they reversed engineering the exchange MAPI protocol).
Sadly isnt free software, but uses several free software parts and so have several more features that are impossible or hell in exchange... it also alot more cheaper... only if they would open it even more!!
but in my opinion, the exchange replacement must be dealt from both sides, the server AND the client...
most server to work must use a outlook connector or use a webclient... because there isnt really a outlook replacement, thunderbird+calendar or lightning its still very weak against outlook, evolution is too big, complicated and too much linked to gnome (and its windows versions still have problems)...chandler is still unfinished...
thunderbird is a good email client, lightning need alot more resources to help its future...
chandler also looks very good, but its also taking too long...
with a good email+calendar+task client, changing the server would be alot easier... outlook isnt even a good email client, just a good calendar...
Higuita
I am so sick of this drivel. It is always the same. Someone comes up with some 'solution' that is the perfect "insert you own MS product" that will be killed by open source. Think about it people. If it so good, guess what, MS is going to either steal it or buy it. Look at Hotmail. They are the borg, and I have had too much vodka. enjoy.
DKone
Here is what I saw when I went to China. The Chinese government (Chicoms) themselves produce very little if any anti-US propaganda. The predominant target of Chicom propaganda is Japan. It is VERY cheezily produced. CNN International is freely available in China, and is a much more effective anti-US propaganda tool than anything the Chicoms can produce.
I'm getting tired of "mashups". Can't we do some "mashdowns" for once? Or how about a "mosh between"? Or maybe a few "mash reruns"?
I think it's time for another "bubble over", myself.
(where's the "-1 Not Actually Funny" rating?)
It would be good news if Google used a proper open synchronization protocol like SyncML. Then alternative servers using the same protocol could be used instead of Google. But that's not really in Google's interest, is it?
FYI there are lots of smartphones that support SyncML, in fact anything by Nokia or Sony Ericsson running Symbian OS will do. A good Open Source server and desktop client is needed. I use http://www.mobical.net/ for synchronizing (over the air) with my Nokia 9300 and that works great. But mobical is only free as in beer and the Nokia is not free at all... The standard is, though...
A widely supported open protocol is the way to beat the MS calendaring stuff, not just moving to another proprietary protocol.
X.
Yes, I too wonder about the utility of having all of your data off-site. But then again, I've used nothing but webmail for about 6 years and have had no problems at all. I'd bet Google has better data security than the vast majority of companies, since data is their core business. Karl Rove might not have lost his email (ahem) if he'd used off-site storage.
Perhaps they should move to Groupwise then. It'll take care of your needs, It can run on a Linux box, a Windows Server, or yes even Netware if you still have it.
"And that's just off the top of my head..."
And I bet they're only on your head. How many of them have you tested? How many of them you can say "I successfully deployed it on Company X, so I know it's a viable solution that does work"?
Zimbra alone is enough to completely replace exchange and more. Not only is it OSS but there is a company backing it from which you can purchase enterprise support. I've personally used it for a medium sized business and it easily replaces exchange. It also has many many features exchange could never dream of. Check out their demo site... you will be impressed.
If an officer ever threatens to taze you, say you have a pacemaker.
"I really wish it was possible to partition it by date"
Curiously enough email clients as "simple" as Pine have been able to do it for ages. Of course, if Microsoft didn't implemented it, it must mean it doesn't exist or it's undoable.
"Zimbra alone is enough to completely replace exchange and more"
1) That's untrue. Can I stablish a workflow for an office suite template-based document alike to what Ms Exchange can do with Ms Office Documents (not to talk about how much can be done once Sharepoint is installed)? Can I use my current user database/ACLs? Can I integrate/centralize user management policies? No, I can't
2) For a 25 users network you will need privative software enhancements (so we are not talking here about an "open source Exchange killer") that will cost you 875US$/year, quite more than an equivalente Ms Exchange installation.
Of course if by "replacing Exchange" you mean SMTP+IMAP+Webmail+Antivirus/antispam (current Zimbra Open Source doesn't do much more than this) well, yes, you can do it with Zimbra... but you can do it with Postfix+CyrusIMAP+clam/dspam, cheaper and on a much more flexible fashion.
But again that's *not* what makes Exchange shine.
Sun messaging server is open source and a whole lot more reliable than Exchange. sun Messaging is also built on open standards so it work with about any client too.
Linus wasn't bribed. You don't have to be bribed to not agree 100% with RMS. He just thought the GPLv3 went too far in restricting people's use of the code.
I KNOW China's problems aren't economic. But economic advancement CAN bring about political change. Your plan of imposing a 50% tariff on Chinese goods WOULD work if it was something the American people would tolerate. A tariff that high would raise prices for many many products that Americans buy by a great deal. The easy thing about grand standing is you don't have to make sure that your ideas are practical. You just get on a soapbox/high horse and dictate from on high to those you consider "evil and or ignorant". China isn't the Soviet Union. Our strategy doesn't need to be the same. The situation isn't the same. China isn't enveloping its neighbors under an "iron curtain." Politics isn't binary code, its not black and white. Its not like the GPL where you can dictate your terms. You've got to negotiate and compromise. Or fail.
So seeing as the American populace isn't going to tolerate a 50% price increase of products sold at Wal-Mart, Target, Home Depot, JC Penney....etc that leaves us with economic engagement. Its already produced results. As China urbanizes they are looseing authortarian control very slowly but surely. Sexual freedom has increased as has education on condom usage and the like, the media is exploding in China. Websites, TV shows...etc. No its not like the United States yet but it was never going to be that way over night.
Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
Some links here* to get it setup. I just set it up and it's not too bad.
/calendar)
/var/www/html/calendar /var/www/html/calendar /var/www/html/calendar /var/www/html/calendar
/etc/httpd/calendar cal
/etc/init.d/httpd restart /var/log/httpd/access_log /var/log/httpd/error_log
/calendar/ HTTP/1.1" 401 475 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686 (x86_64); en-US; rv:1.8.1.3) Gecko/20070326 Thunderbird/2.0.0.0" /calendar/ HTTP/1.1" 405 307 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686 (x86_64); en-US; rv:1.8.1.3) Gecko/20070326 Thunderbird/2.0.0.0" /calendar/17e23dae-dabc-49c6-83f6-322d0bcba25c.ics HTTP/1.1" 201 298 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686 (x86_64); en-US; rv:1.8.1.3) Gecko/20070326 Thunderbird/2.0.0.0"
e x.html
steps:
1) edit httpd.conf and configure webdav (uncomment these):
- LoadModule dav_module modules/mod_dav.so
- LoadModule dav_fs_module modules/mod_dav_fs.so
2) add a location under web server root to save the calendars to.
Replace parenthesis below with arrowheads per usual apache conriguration.
slashdot strips my arrowheads in the post. Define the calendar user
authentication as the 'cal' user:
(Location
Dav On
AuthType basic
AuthName cal
AuthUserFile calendar
(LimitExcept GET HEAD OPTIONS)
require user cal
(/LimitExcept)
(/Location)
3) create the calendar directory under the web root with write
access for web server. (note: web servers with write access are
potential security holes to watch your logs). On fedora, apache
is a member of the apache group. I give root ownership of the
directory and give write access to the apache group. Adding the
sticky bit to the directory assures users can only delete files
they own, not someone elses.
- mkdir
- chown root:apache
- chmod g+w
- chmod o+t
4) create the cal user for httpd and give him a password:
- htpasswd -c
- New password:
- Re-type new password:
- Adding password for user cal
5) restart httpd and watch httpd message logs for errors or sucess:
-
- tail -f
6) create new calendar in thunderbird using webdav
- calendars -> new -> on the network
- format == caldav
- location == http://localhost/calendar
- Next
- name == test
- Next
- (Web authorization popup should come up)
- username == cal
- password == see_step_4
You should see something in your apache messages logs similar to this if calendar is working:
127.0.0.1 - - [15/Apr/2007:15:12:26 -0500] "REPORT
127.0.0.1 - cal [15/Apr/2007:15:13:08 -0500] "REPORT
127.0.0.1 - cal [15/Apr/2007:15:13:19 -0500] "PUT
[*] - http://www.twilight-systems.com/flacco/mozcal/ind
boycott slashdot February 10th - 17th check out: altSlashdot.org
The best place for company proprietary data is where they can maintain explicit control over access to that data. As soon as you move the data outside of the corporate enterprise, you lose that control, and no corporation whose proprietary data is worth any amount of money is going to consider that an acceptable risk. Corporations make decisions based on cost and liability (when they're not making decisions on how to increase the value of the elite golden parachutes, but I digress), and allowing their proprietary data to be managed by someone else outside of the corporate enterprise is generally considered by most corporations to be an unacceptable risk. Why? Because even though they may have legal recourse after the fact, once proprietary data has been accidentally or intentionally released the real damage is already done.
As for Google being better at accessibility, security and cost, that is too broad of an assumption. Most companies that have proprietary data worth protecting make the point of hiring competent information security personnel, and the principle of "the less people who have access to the data the more secure it is" generally applies.
-- daecabhir (this mind intentionally left blank)
OK, so there is a lot of talk about creating an Exchange clone, an alternative, and most solutions offering a Linux backend that still allows users to use Outlook and synchronize with MS products.
Isn't this just copying and not creating and real value to innovate? Directly creating a Linux Exchange clone that can talk with Outlook, doesn't that just further strengthen the cause to use MS products for the end-user?
The Linux community should embrace a standard compliant Group Calendar, Addressbook, and Mail - This can be provided completely Web-based without the need for a fat client, especially end users with Outlook. Users can access the product using Firefox, Safari of IE, cross-platform.
Food for thought, embrace a new protocol/product that can offer the features Exchange does, but in a radically new way, without the need to support 'Outlook'
One product that has this vision is @Mail - Keep an eye on the project
All I can say is, you lucked out. I know of a place where there is an entire room -- we're talking one of those rooms full of sliding library-esque shelves -- full of what's essentially garbage, stored there because of one person who decided they didn't trust computers because they kicked their own powerstrip one day while working on a ginormous spreadsheet that they hadn't saved. Everything got printed out related to this project; we're talking emails, individual employees' timesheets, drafts of stuff that had been revised dozens of times, memos about who's bringing what to the company picnic and when the refrigerator in the break room gets cleaned out. All of it stuffed into file boxes and stored.
Last time I checked it's still piling up; they're getting on about 10 years worth of crap now.
There are more people around like that than I think most tech people realize; it's not even technophobia in some cases as much as borderline OCD that's allowed to express itself through random paper hoarding. Give them the power to do it, and people will squirrel away just about anything.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
We're working on providing an open standards based replacement for exchange largely based on Mozilla Thunderbird (but supporting Outlook and Evolution as well) which provides freebusy, full calendar, IMAP, webmail/cal etc. You can look here: http://www.buni.org/mediawiki/index.php/Meldware_C ommunications_Suite for starters. We plan to offer commercial support, but we supply our software under an unqualified open source license (LGPL) rather than a non OSI-compliant "exhibit B" (adware) license or feature limitations.
Yeah, when it rains, it pours...
Web host calls me this afternoon, while I'm at my day job. I need to do a mandatory upgrade that will cost me 150% of what I was paying for their services, but he is going to throw in a lot of extras. (If I wanted extras, I would have shopped for a different host package.) He claims they notified me about this by email on Jan 4. I look, and find that the only communications I've had with them in all of Jan were support tickets because they couldn't keep my site online. He says that since I've got 35 support tickets, I need the improved service. I point out that those 35 support tickets are over the 8 years I've been with them, and more than 90% are reports of their services breaking down one way or another. (They had a pattern of things going off-line on Friday and Saturday nights and not getting fixed until Monday afternoons.) He starts up with something else, and I say "Forget it. I'm no longer interested in doing business with you. Goodbye."
He calls back and says that he is in administration, not sales, and he'll forgive me for being rude to him and hanging up on him. I tell him I don't have time for this, I'm quitting your service, goodbye.
A few minutes later I get a call from someone else who says he is the guy's boss and what's the problem and I'm the last account on that server, you see... I interrupt and say I've cancelled; shut it down. He asks whether there is some other problem, which actually totally flummoxes me... I tell him being pushed into a mandatory upgrade without being notified of it isn't enough? He says I was sent an email; I said I never received the email, but I did receive the notification of billing for continuing my existing contract only a few weeks ago. Oh, he says, that's automated... I say goodbye.
That acount is now defunct.
I'll have to get back in touch with them since I've paid ahead for services that they now say they won't provide. I have used 3 weeks of the current yearly contract; I expect them to refund me 94% of what they billed to my credit card on March 22.
And I'm very disappointed that I can't take my domain name with me. When I set that up so many years ago, I was a little green and I never realized that they were actually registering the domain for me, apparently as a courtesy, so it has never actually been mine. Even though I've been paying a premium price every year for its renewal (it seemed like it was worth an extra $8 per year to avoid more paperwork.)
All in all, I think it is a Good Thing to move on to another web host. As the saying goes, you can't choose your relatives, but you can choose your business associates.
This company might be just the thing for somebody else, so here's their contact data:
Global Internet Solutions (gee, it's been several years since I looked at their front page... it seems, idunno, less somehow than what I remember)
GISol's contact page (all sorts of ways to ask about the sweet deals on the front page, like the "Six Months Free!" and "$5.95 Per Month!" Actually I've been paying a multiple of that and not getting everything they are offering in these new deals. Maybe I should start a new account with them.)