Slashdot Mirror
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?"
Evolution replaces Outlook, not Exchange.
For those who don't know what Evolution is. Screenshots.
"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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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
We run Evolution at work, and it sucks. It is not stable and does not handle even simple calendaring properly. There are more bugs in it than at a cockroach farm.
I say that and I am sorry, because I love open source, but Evolution is something only a mother can love.
---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.
I don't think we really know what they have given them. If they present a NSL to them, they are unable to even speak about the request.
Bringing liberty to the masses. - http://freetalklive.com/
Ok.. It's buggy. Have you submitted bug reports? Doesn't do any good to gripe about the rain if you're not willing to do something about it.
There is such a thing as users wanting products that just work. Open Source does need participation from the community, but this is not just a strength - it is also a weakness. It isn't reasonable to expect that every user of a product should participate in the testing and development of that product. Products that are intended to be used by a broad user base should be stable products and should not require the end user to have to provide input for product development. Clicking "yes, submit error report" is one thing - having to go out of the way to file an error report is another. So long as the open source community continues to respond to complaints by saying, "You should file a bug report!" or "You should develop a patch!" - so long as this sort of thing takes place, Open Source products will lose. It's completely the wrong attitude for developers to have.
I love my sig.
Only if it is intelligently designed.
-- The Genesis project? What's that?