Slashdot Mirror
Open-source Challenge To Exchange Gains Steam
jbrodkin writes "An open-source, cloud-based e-mail alternative to Microsoft Exchange called Open-Xchange has signed up two new service providers and predicts it will have 40 million users by the end of 2011. Based in Germany, Open-Xchange has tripled its user base from 8 million to 24 million paid seats since 2008, with the help of three dozen service providers including 1&1 Internet, among the world's largest Web hosting companies. Microsoft is still the 800-pound gorilla, with a worldwide install base of 301 million mailboxes in 2010, expected to reach 470 million by 2014. But Open-Xchange is luring numerous service providers who are wary of Microsoft's attempts to compete against its own partners by selling hosted e-mail services directly to its customers."
Unfortunately, it's also wholly unsuitable for any business needing absolute confidentiality, just like every cloud solution.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
As far as I can tell, SOX is probably the second-most over-hyped piece of legal misunderstanding promulgated as fact on Slashdot, position #1 being the recurring myth that ISPs are subject to common carrier regulations.
SOX applies to public companies only. From Wikipedia, it does not appear to place any specific requirements on corporate IT, except that the corporate IT will be audited for compliance with the "normal" parts of the law -- so you have to keep records on various things. This hasn't stopped people from making shit up -- if the law specifies that certain data must be "retained" for X months, Slashdotters and charlatans selling "SOX compliance" services are going to say that means the law says you have to use RAID 1000000 and update your offsite backups every 2 days. Just, cuz, you know, that's standard practice.
The law -- and I haven't read it, but I can guarantee you OP hasn't either -- doesn't say anything like that. Just like it doesn't say you have to chisel your non-digital documents in titanium sheets in case the building catches fire. It's not specifying particular standards -- it's just saying you can't be Enron. If the building catches fire or the hard drive crashes, well, you know, shit happens. Whether not installing sprinklers or not having backups was negligent or in bad faith is for a court to decide. So far, it hasn't come up.
OP -- and I don't know him, and he's probably a nice guy -- may now tell me about his personal experience with how Fortune 500 companies DO chisel Xeroxes into titanium and DO use RAID 1000000 and daily updated offsite backups AND ANYTHING ELSE IS NEGLIGENT AND WOULD GET ME THROWN INTO JAIL IN THE "REAL WORLD". And I'm probably going to ignore him because this post took all the time I want to spend talking about this. But: unless he backs his claims up with a statute, a court case, or at least a letter ruling from some relevant executive branch agency ... I'd be suspicious, man. Think of all the corporate incompetence with information management (laptops with credit cards gone missing ... oops) you hear about on Slashdot. Now think if Slashdot talks about anyone going to jail for that, or even getting in any real trouble.
---linuxrocks123
vi ~/.emacs # I'm probably going to Hell for this.