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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?"
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.
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.
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.
---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.
Anything big is slow to move and is an easy target. Big things usually subtract the human element due to bureaucracy. I would say that big things are generally corrupt, and that would indicate Google too.
---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.
I dont know where you live, or what you do for a living, but I'm a 25 year old. At our local mall, there's a door with a company plate on it. It idnt spiffy looking, nor are there windows or anything else. They are a marketing firm. They are the ones that Coca-Cola, Pepsi-Cola and many other companies go to for aggregate and specialized data.
I have participated in a few of these studies (I cannot specify product names.. nda for company name I tested only). I usually am given 10$ worth of goods to test and then do a write up and phone interview for said products.
My average payout for these interviews is ~30$, along with free products, and getting a say on a new product. I KNOW that I'm in a database somewhere and I'm properly compensated for it. When companies come along and want "free information" for "free product", it tells me that what they offer isnt worth it, and my data is worthless.
Word to Google: Tell me how much my information is worth, and Ill pay for information if your product is worth what I deem it to be. Better yet, if they are willing to pay me, I'll list product names and prices and my personal writeups. Not all companies will like what I write.
"Proprietary information should be stored in whatever place is the best place for it. Criteria that need to be measured include security, accessability, and cost. Most corporations cannot do as well with any of these as a specialist company like Google. Most corporations should not be able to do as well with any of these as Google, since their IT departments are cost centers, not profit centers."
False. You assume that Google's IT department and a corporate IT department have the same goals.
They don't.
Google's business model depends on providing access to their services to people outside of their network, while making sure those people outside of their network only get access to what they are supposed to access.
Corporate network admins, on the other hand, typically give first priority to doing something that Google fundamentally can't without interfering with their business model - prevent outsiders from obtaing ANY access whatsoever to the internal network. This is pretty easy with a proxying firewall. Optionally, after that begin providing access to authorized external users in a controlled and secure manner, such as an IPSec VPN using RSA SecurID tokens for authentication. Google simply can't force all users of their services to go get a SecurID token and VPN in, especially since such VPN systems usually force the client machine into connecting ONLY to the network it is being connected to via VPN.
Their next priority is usually controlling what internal users get access to what, but this is an easier job than "you vs. rest of world". You can usually ensure by methods already in place (Interviews of potential employees, locked doors with badge access and/or combo locks, etc.) that the likelihood of internal users being a skilled cracker is low, although IT departments should still assume that they are. Google can't place men with guns and network monitoring devices (IDS and other sniffers) at every potential user's home to say, "You may be doing something malicious. Stop now."
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?