Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

A Different Perspective On Snow Leopard's Exchange Support

Posted by timothy on from the your-jeans-are-100pct-patches dept.

imamac writes "Apple Insider has an interesting perspective on the MS Exchange support built into Mac OS X 10.6 and how it essentially frees Apple from all things Microsoft: 'Windows Enthusiasts like to spin Apple's support for Exchange on the iPhone and in Snow Leopard as endorsement of Microsoft in the server space. From another angle, Apple is reducing its dependence upon Microsoft's client software, weakening Microsoft's ability to hold back and dumb down its Mac offerings at Apple's expense. More importantly, Apple is providing its users with additional options that benefit both Mac users and the open source community.'"

3 of 276 comments (clear)

  1. How does this *free* Mac users? by quanticle · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I'm not sure I understand the article's contention that Exchange support frees Apple users from Microsoft. After all, the Exchange protocol is still proprietary and under exclusive control of Microsoft. As long as this is the case, Microsoft is free to change the Exchange protocol to freeze out third party clients.

    Yes, Apple's increased support for the Exchange protocol may improve the user experience when dealing with Exchange servers. However, it does nothing to actually free users from Microsoft.

    --
    We all know what to do, but we don't know how to get re-elected once we have done it
    1. Re:How does this *free* Mac users? by TheSunborn · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It frees apple from needing Microsoft software on the client.

      And they did license the access to exchange from Microsoft, so they can't just lock them out.

  2. Re:Apple is not donig "Exchange". by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If you consider IMAP to be a "security nightmare", I'm wondering why you allow anyone to access your exchange server at all.

    If MS can't get IMAP to work securely, what makes you think they can do any better with any other protocol?