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?"

Comments

It's not going to happen

[cyberkahn]

"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.

Re:It's not going to happen

[rucs_hack]

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.

Are we so sure that Google will always be nice? Do we want our online office and email to become dependant on yet another single vendor?

Ok, I don't know anyone but google who could help beat the Microsoft monopoly on office services, but if they do become the dominant player, who's to say that things won't change in the google camp? Anyone who gains power rarely likes to give it up, and is rarely happy for other people to threaten their position.

I'm short on alternatives here, but it's a concern I think a few more people should be pondering.

Re:It's not going to happen

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a two step process, right. It's more than simply switching from one overlord to another; the idea is to encourage competition between the two. Having two options is clearly better than just the one - not to mention that Apple is also stepping up to the plate with their iCal Server thingy in Leopard.

Your concerns likely have merit, but fortunately, if the market gets broken open, we'll be able to do better than just to choose between giants...

Re:It's not going to happen

[contrapunctus]

But if *your* connection to the world is not working you won't get access to you email on Google's servers.
I'm not advocating putting everything local, but it's difficult for one person to foresee the needs of many others.

Re:It's not going to happen

[omeomi]

We'd LOVE to be able to provide an open calendar that can be used by staff and students alike but we won't be relying on a 3rd party to host everything. Much as I'd love to see Exchange finally gone from our campus it won't happen until we get either an appliance or software that we can host in our data center.

There's not really any particular reason that you'd have to use Google calendar to host your calendar. Sunbird and the Thunderbird/Lightning thing work with the iCal format, which you can host on any webDAV server...if you want a web-accessible component, just use a PHP Calendar that also reads iCal. That's what we do at work...Using Google just makes things a little easier.

Re:It's not going to happen

[gad_zuki!]

>if the market gets broken open, we'll be able to do better than just to choose between giants...

Well, we have open office, but no big migration to it. We have the entire linux os, yet windows still dominates on the server and client side. I have two concerns:

1. Even if you build it, they may not come. Someone could release an outlook/exchange replacement tomorrow and it may very well have zero-effect.

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.

3. Google is a close-source corporation that is an infamous data miner. They certainly are not open-source and have little to do with OSS other than token gestures and leveraging OSS to fight MS. Again, more agenda-driven stuff but this time its corporate agenda-driven shit.

When did everyone become a google employee? The enemy of your enemy is not necessarily your friend.

no bloody chance

[lambent]

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.

Please don't flame me ...

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Google is open source?

[djlurch]

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.

Re:Evolution???

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Evolution???

[Columcille]

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.

Re:Evolution???

[chooks]

Evolution replaces Outlook, not Exchange.

Only if it is intelligently designed.