Get out of the Revolving M$ Door - Alternative to Exchange
Written by Karl L. Gechlik | AskTheAdmin.com on July 8, 2007 – 11:00 am -
Edit - I borught this article, By The SlothMan, back up towards the top after I recieved so many responses about Zimbra -
I will make no bones about my disdain for Microsoft. I think their business ethics are an oxymoron. I think they make mediocre products by and large, and their focus is keeping you in the revolving door of addiction to their products, not making a quality product at a fair price.
My target today, is MS Exchange.
For the uninitiated, MS Exchange if Microsoft’s mail server. It is pretty vanilla. It pretty much only does mail. And it is NOT cheap and the migration paths to newer versions are at times treacherous at best.
Exchange/Outlook makes up about 60% of the mail server/clients installed globally with Lotus/Domino taking up the vast majority of the remainder but that is changing as the Open Source Community has put a bullseye on Exchange to offer a more cost effective solution than Exchange. In fact in a recent Yankee Group Survey shows that 23% of respondents are looking to migrate away from Exchange.
You might ask, why I don’t like Exchange. Here’s the reasons why:
- It is a Microsoft product
- It is limited in functionality
- It is expensive
- It is notably vulnerable to attacks and viruses
- It is a major TARGET of attacks and viruses
- It is not as scalable as other solutions
- It is a FAT application that requires a lot of hardware
- It is a FAT application that requires a lot of manpower/time to support/maintain
But you may ask, “I don’t want to have to have my end users learn a new client application” or “I like Outlook Web Access”
Great question….you don’t have to and there are alternatives!
I want to introduce you all to Zimbra
Zimbra is an open source mail server. It can be free or you can purchase a more robust version with support for about $35/end user license. Compare that to Exchange!!!
What Zimbra offers you is the exact same functionality of Exchange with none of the drawbacks.
You can run Zimbra on an older, or cheaper Linux server with 1GB of RAM and that will support about 1000 users or so. It has plug ins for Outlook too which will make it seamless for you users to start using Zimbra mail, as well as it comes with a migration utility which will move your contacts, calendar, and email(including personal folders) over to Zimbra.
But there is more!!!! Zimbra is managed, very easily via a web console. So you don’t have to be at your server or have SSH/VNC/RDP access to your server. Hit up a web address and you’re in!
But what about OWA you ask??? Well….if they allow you to administer it via the web…then they must have a web client. If you figure that out, you’re right! They have a rich AJAX based web client which gives you all the functionality of your Outlook client, but via the web and not like the 2003 OWA which is restricted as opposed to what is offered in Outlook.
Zimbra also has a built in wiki functionality and a document sharing functionality which I’ve read will be improved with time.
But you will ask about integration with applications such as Sharepoint and MS Office, or other apps…guess what, all those apps tie in to Outlook and don’t care what is on the backend in most instances. So if you have Outlook, you’re gold! While I have disdain for MS, Outlook is a great ‘middleware’ application as EVERYTHING hooks into it. Also Zimbra has the ability through its iCal standards compliant calendering system to be able to syndicate your calendar as well as pull in other syndicated calendars from say Google’s Calendar.
I think I’ve bored you all enough right now, but I will leave you with a few ending thoughts.
- Set up a test box to play with Zimbra or download a demo Zimbra appliance from VMWare
- Check out the live demo on Zimbra’s site
- Scalix is also considered an ‘exchange killer’ server and is free as well(I did not like it as much as Zimbra)
- When in doubt, check out Lotus/Domino. Platform independent and has a LOT more functionality over Exchange including native clustering, but you will miss a lot of the integration.
–Sloth
technologyTags: Open Source, review
Posted in Uncategorized |
By Bill on Jun 22, 2007 | Reply
this is great can is it totaly free if i dont need support?
By Anonymous on Jun 22, 2007 | Reply
WILL MEETING INVITES WORTK?
By Anonymous on Jun 22, 2007 | Reply
>> this is great can is it totaly free if i dont need support?
Yes. There are a few feature differences between the free open source version, and the commercially supported version — you can see the distinctions here: http://www.zimbra.com/products/product_editions.html
> WILL MEETING INVITES WORTK?
Yes, it has full group-calendar functionality, including meeting invites, free-busy information, etc.
By The Slothman on Jun 22, 2007 | Reply
Bill: No need to buy support, but I would…for the little money it costs, it would be worth it.
There is a vibrant community for Zimbra and most problems can be resolved through there in my experience. I’ve only got one Zimbra box hosting a few small domains and it is working quite well.
Anon:
Yes. Just tested it again to confirm. Meeting set up by Notes 6.5.1 client to Zimbra and it processed fine and sent a reply back to my Notes acknowledging the acceptance.
By Karl L. Gechlik on Jun 22, 2007 | Reply
Sloth My Man you are the shizzzznit!
Are there any downfalls to running this over exchange? Any cons? Anything it cant do?
My fondness for linux grows by the minute.
Any one want to do a linux tip of the day?
_THEADMIN_
By The Slothman on Jun 22, 2007 | Reply
Are there any downfalls to running this over exchange? Any cons? Anything it cant do?
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Yeah…blackberry integration is sketchy at best.
There is an open source product called funambol which is supposed to do blackberry integration, as well as Zimbra is working on their own service.
There are also third party/pay services that will link up to Zimbra, but you probably wont get that within seconds hit to the BB handheld like you do with a BES server.
As stated before, we are a Lotus shop and we have all sorts of functionality in our Domino/Notes environment that cannot be duplicated with Zimbra, but if you’re only using the server for mail and small collaboration, why shell out so much $$$ for Exchange???
Isn’t it like $70/user??? And the server licenses are astronomical….for what??? Mail…you can do better for your budget is all I am really saying.
By Terinea Weblog on Jun 22, 2007 | Reply
Other alternative is MailEnable. Its not Open Source but at half the price and just as many features its well worth checking out.
I also think you can use MailEnable for 90 days before purchasing it.
We used Mercury before, for numbers over 20, just don’t bother.
Of course if you do have Linux box your spoil of choice.
By Anonymous on Jun 23, 2007 | Reply
who makes this mailenable? what platform is it for?
By Anonymous on Jun 23, 2007 | Reply
Does not mention the massive advantages zimbra offers for Mac and linux integration over exchange.
http://linuxscorecard.blogspot.com/2007/05/microsoft-stranglehold-on-corporate.html
By mark on Jun 24, 2007 | Reply
I’m in the process of evaluating Zimbra and exchange 2007. I’m no Microsoft fan but you can’t claim Exhcange “pretty much only does mail”.
Look at the mobile integration, calendar services and collaboration tools. Zimbra is indeed a great open source product, but it’s is still young; it certainly doesn’t offer the same exact functionality - one example would be the inability to create a private meeting.
Zimbra’s web admin interface is cool but you do need to crack open a command line every now and again.
The fact you don’t like Exchange because “It’s Microsoft” doesn’t fly in the real world, certainly a world where you need to communicate with 90% plus of Microsoft applications installed on your client machines.
FWIW I’m primarily a linux guy, I love the tagging, mash ups, / Zimlets and the Zimbra AJAX client rocks - but if people are looking at open source alternatives From Exchange they might need to wait a bit for Zimbra to catch up with the calendaring application and documents area.
I’m pretty confident Zimbra 5 and 5.5 releases will help sysadmins convince company owners that Zimbra can replace your Exchange install, but Zimbra 4.5 might not be the overall solution or replacement people think it is.
I do think people are screwed into Exchange. I wonder how many of that 23% will go through the migration hassle. if money isn’t an object I’m not too sure.
I’m in a good position (or bad, depending on who you talk to at my company). I don’t have to worry about getting people off Exchange, I’ve got a qmail insall (IMAP) that I can sync mail over pretty easily to whatever we go for. We might still go for Zimbra even it’s still got a few bugs - because I’m highly confident Satish Dharmaraj and his guys will work this stuff out, and I, like most sysadmins, hate getting tied into the shit Microsoft gets you ties into.
Cheers
By Karl L. Gechlik on Jun 24, 2007 | Reply
Mark those are wonderful points and exactly why I am running exchange 2003 and evaluating the same two applications.
I dont think we are moving from exchange any time soon but if Zimbra “Grows Up” and “Matures” & incorporating blackberry support then we might go over. But until then Microsofts hands are firmly around my organization.
I do use ubuntu at home as well as open office and loads of open source programs over main stream apps.
Let us know how your evaluations go and come back and comment again!
Post some questions!
Karl Gechlik - TheAdmiN
By ninjaAdmin on Jun 24, 2007 | Reply
Welcome to the board Mark. Good insights.
By mark on Jun 25, 2007 | Reply
Thanks guys, i’ll post some q’s in the future. Note I’m evaluating notifylink, it’s a kinda BES server for Zimbra that might solve your backberry users issues.
It’s a windows 2003 install (no Linux installer, oddly) but so far works really well with mobile access for blackberry - email, cal and contacts were seamless. Really good install support as well, they do it for you if you want them to.
It costs a bit of $$$, going to be over $1,500 + nominal annual charges for 15 mobile devices (something like $125 each client) - but they also support the open source version of Zimbra so you can save some money there. Really it isn’t that much when you do the math with what you get.
Note that for 150 users on Zimbra, with support, I’d be looking at around $4,500 a year - but $28 per user still isn’t too bad considering what you get.
Zimbra also has Zimbra Mobile (only in the paid version) but I’ve not check that out yet, good support for Windows mobile devices apparently.
You might also want to look into voIP in Zimbra, that’s another thing on my to do list.
cheers
By Karl L. Gechlik on Jun 25, 2007 | Reply
Good Deal Mark!
If you would like to guest blog about any of your findings let me know and I would love to set you up. We are trying to a get a bigger voice of the admin!
Karl L. Gechlik
_TheAdmiN_
By The Slothman on Jun 26, 2007 | Reply
I feel I need to respond to the following, and no this will not start a flame war:
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Mark Said:
The fact you don’t like Exchange because “It’s Microsoft” doesn’t fly in the real world, certainly a world where you need to communicate with 90% plus of Microsoft applications installed on your client machines.
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My point behind saying that is that MS makes mediocre software. People buy MS software not because it is the best product or one that provides the most value, rather business decisions are made by business men who think, naively that all MS stuff works together, therefore it is the easiest and the best option.
I think us admins can all agree that this is flat out wrong, and the wrong way to acquire/implement technical solutions for businesses.
This is how MS has managed to get such a large install base for Exchange, through their blitzkrieg marketing that makes people believe they are getting a better product, which in fact they are not!
For example…Lotus Notes/Domino is a far superior platform, and the features you talk about with regard to Exchange having an edge over Zimbra with have existed for more than a decade to which Exchange is just starting to get a hold of.
It speaks volumes that Zimbra gets these features, be it in beta, in a fraction of the time that it has taken MS to get on with it. Again…mediocre software, for mediocre minds who made the decisions to use it.
There are however some shining MS examples. Outlook is one of them. Dear god that is a great interface, but an average application. Same with Word. If Lotus Notes had a nicer interface, you can bet the farm that Outlook/Exchange would be bringing up the rear. Eye candy, but it rots your teeth and picks your pocket.
Visio rules. Great app. Funny…MS didn’t make that did they.
Here’s a little challenge for us admins. Find an MS product that exists, that is far and away superior(technically) to another application in the same class, and is cheaper. I cannot think of one to be honest.
The point is MS never leads. It follows, but the wake it creates make it looks like it is leading.
They are the proverbial 600lb gorilla and you cannot ignore them nor get away from using some of their products. I accept that and always will, but I can see the men behind the curtain and am willing to look at other options and that is all I am talking about here. Trust me, I LOVED Win2K. I have XP but it has grown on me. Vista is a nightmare. 95 was cool. 98 was still cool.
So next time you’re in a meeting about a new possible software package that management wants to shove down your throat that happens to be Microsoft or relies heavily on MS, ask them why and look for alternatives. Next time you’re around the CIO/CTO ask them ‘why do we use exchange?’ And explain that there are alternatives that are more secure, more scalable, and quite frankly…cheaper. The homogeneous environment exposes you to too many potential problems because it is……duh, duh, da, duh…Microsoft and they way they hook all their apps together and tie them to the OS’. Too much potential for problems for my liking…and yet I am in predominantly an MS shop, yet have no problems because I am aware of the potential problems and am proactive about them.
The problem is that too many of us admins and CT/IO’s are too scared to be bold when picking MS is the safe play. It is the layup on the 18th hole at Augusta when if you take a shot at the hole you can do better. Too many people fear the migration, the headaches, the unknown. Don’t be afraid, embrace it because there are other options that can make you the superstar.
By Karl L. Gechlik on Jun 27, 2007 | Reply
I agree with both of you Mark and Sloth in some aspects and disagree in others.
Microsoft DOES have the market share and using their products usually make you compatiable with the rest of your industry.
But with a little elbow grease you can make some platforms seamless without using major MS components like Exchange. But if you want to hang with the big boys and spend a lot more time and money getting things set up the way you want. Go with open source. If you want something that works out of the box with tweaks MS is for you.
Open source doesnt save money it gives you more options and the money that you saved on liscensing you put into developement.
Which isnt a bad thing if it is a product that your bussiness depends on. After saying all this I will add I LOVE OUTLOOK 2007 and havent found any other piece of software that keeps me as happy.
And yeah Visio is great but they didnt make it the absorbed it
By The Slothman on Jun 28, 2007 | Reply
What it really comes down to Mark is this….
There are industry standards, and then there is the MS Standard.
Take Open Document Format(ODF) for example as this is a great idea of how MS works and if you’re not enraged, you should be committed.
This guy does a great job of explaining the debate
In essence MS is trying to gain a monopoly on a file format for ALL office type documents going forward. So, in essence everyone has to pay a royalty to them because the MSODF will be written using MS’ intellectual property and patents.
Sure their offering might have more features, but it is more complicated, therefore there is more risk for problems to arise.
But standards is where IT is at, or should be. Proprietary is bad. VERY bad. Because even the almighty MS might not be there one day…and because something is not standards compliant, there will come a point in time where there is no support for it.
So say MS comes up with a different version of SMTP. And exchange only will support the new version one day…it could happen. What about ODBC? What about [insert standard here]?
They cannot profit off of standards. So they are now trying to define standards and trying to hold the keys to the kingdom on them too.
Again, I mentioned their business ethics being an oxymoron…this is a prime case of it.
So Exchange works off of an Exchange protocol for Outlook…no other mail client to my knowledge offers it and you get all the features using the proprietary Exchange protocol. Fine. I’m OK with that. But what if the make Exchange not support POP/SMTP/IMAP? It could happen, but it wont. They aren’t that dumb. But what if they decide to hamstring it? They can do it. So now you cannot connect a Thunderbird client to it or anything else for that matter.
Lotus Notes/Domino does the same thing with the Lotus protocol, but they will never hamstring any client because Lotus is an open platform. Zimbra is the same way. It is standards compliant with iCal, Imap, SMTP, POP, etc.
You don’t need any MS products to play with the big boys because if you’re standards compliant on all your apps, they should be interchangeable with all other apps. Granted the number of ‘add on’ apps will be limited because of the proverbial 600lb gorilla is where people write code for…and do you know why they write code for Outlook and not other mail clients???
Because it is cheap and easy. No other reason.
By Anonymous on Jul 5, 2007 | Reply
i wanted to try this for a bit now. i sent an email in last week. how hard is this to install?is there maybe a step-by-step post somewhere?eeverything ive seen so far is all greek to me.am i better to post or email you in the future?
By The Slothman on Jul 5, 2007 | Reply
anon:
How familiar are you with VMWare?
If you have a remedial knowledge of it, you can download the player from http://www.vmware.com and then download this and you have a full fledged network edition 60 day trial to play with it.
It should come preconfigured and you can run it on any box that has the resources needed.
Give it a try as this is the best way so you don’t have to worry about installations, and dependencies and all that jazz.
It can be a tad of a tricky install on a Linux OS(hint: no windows version to my knowledge) with regards to the dependencies and digging in logs to find out what is missing, it is easier to do the virtual appliance to see if it is what you’re looking for.
By Anonymous on Jul 5, 2007 | Reply
Hi There Sloth Im Cisco. Yes I Have Used VM Before.I Need A Solution For The Enterprise Within The Next Week. So If I Demo This How Hard Will It Be To Migrate The Info Over To A Different Solution Or This On A Linux Distro. And How Difficult Is It Really?
By CISC0 on Jul 6, 2007 | Reply
I downloaded the demo appliance - will report back anyone know about migration of users from it though?
By The Slothman on Jul 6, 2007 | Reply
Anon/Cisco:
If I were doing it, I would set up a dummy domain on the VM appliance as a proof of concept to get the approval that this is the way to go. I would not make this a live box until you familiarize yourself with the applications and interfaces to make sure it is what you want and need to fulfill your business goals. This is the prudent approach.
If you like it and want to go forward, but are a little Linux shy or don’t want to have much of the headache of installation you can go this route and just buy a preconfigured server.
However if you’re a hands on guy like myself, get Fedora 5(Zimbra not supported on 6, 7 last I checked) and install the Linux distro on a box that meets the minimum reqs. Download the source and give ‘er a go.
They have a pretty good installation guide which you can find here.
The user forums are VERY well documented and littered with answers to any question I’ve ever come up with.
As far as migrating from the VM Appliance to the real server, I wouldn’t do it. As stated before, I would use the appliance as proof of concept, because when you buy the server software it comes with more features, which you may or may not want to utilize. But if the free, Open Source version is what you want, then skip the appliance and go for it. It is easy to nuke the domain and accounts and start over if need be.
As an aside to what we’re doing, we are looking to possibly move from Lotus Domino/Notes to Zimbra and we took a domain we host which only has 5 users and moved it to Zimbra. It has been over 2 months, possibly 3 since I installed the box and other than adding accounts and trouble shooting a DNS issue…I haven’t touched the box since it went live other than to reboot it once.
By Karl L. Gechlik on Jul 6, 2007 | Reply
Front Page Digg… Slothman your big time!
By Anonymous on Jul 6, 2007 | Reply
I would love to run Zimba for our organization, but it is just too costly. We need to be able to run fat clients like Outlook and Apple Mail so we need the Network Pro edition. It would cost us over $4000 a year to run Zimba or just buy Exchange once.
Any less features offered in Zimbra pretty much just brings us back to a pop/imap/webmail server which we already have in Communigate Pro. CGP cost us about $4000, but we only had to pay once.
Nice try Zimbra guys, but subscription pricing won’t fly for us.
By Milo on Jul 6, 2007 | Reply
Zimbra has a lot of features, but is very young like others have said. For MUCH less money than both Zimbra and MS Exchange, has anyone looked at Kerio? http://www.kerio.com I’ve run it for a couple years and it has a great web interface, runs on mac, linux and windows, integrates anti-virus/anti-spam, and now can sync mobiles using exchange activesync. I’m not sure about the blackberry function yet. Haven’t tried it.
Just my 2 cents…
By Karl L. Gechlik on Jul 6, 2007 | Reply
Milo that sounds great. I’m going to look into it on Monday. Thank you.
Any interest in writing up a review of Kerio for us?
Have a great weekend!
_TheAdmiN_
By Milo on Jul 6, 2007 | Reply
Yeah, I’ll see what I can do over the weekend. I’ll try to get some good detail in there without boring anyone. I took the 4 hour certification (yes, it took the whole time) for kerio over a year ago and passed, so let’s see what I remember.
By Karl L. Gechlik on Jul 6, 2007 | Reply
Thanks Milo our readers will appreciate it.
By Anonymous on Jul 7, 2007 | Reply
I use to work for a startup that had VC investment from a Seattle firm that has a lot of ex Microsoft people.
One of the guys was explaining that Microsoft is “Scared” of Zimbra. I thought this was very interesting, because we ran most things on linux except for Exchange and hadn’t heard about Zimbra. Never got a chance to move to Zimbra, but thought it great to know that internal at M$ they are watching zimbra very closely.
By Jim on Jul 7, 2007 | Reply
I personally use Postfix+Dovecot for SMTP and IMAP on my own hardware but in corporate environments Exchange rules the roost. If you’re an MS-centric company, Exchange is superior to everything else, including Notes. Sorry, I’ve gone from Outlook/Exchange to Notes/Domino and Notes just reeks. I’ve been using it for 6+ months now and I still can’t stand it. Ick ick ick. A byzantine, horror to support piece of junk. Fortunately the company I work for will be moving to Exchange, but with 20K+ databases and a ton of workflow designed in Notes that’s no small feat.
Having setup and administered a lot of Exchange servers I would say Exchange stands on its own outside of Microsoft marketing hype. I’m not claiming it’s the best or at all perfect but it does its job quite well. I wouldn’t have been able to say the same about Exch 5.5 but 2000/2003 has improved things quite a bit. If you’re in an MS world, it’s really a pretty nice product to use.
In any case, while Zimbra is a nice product, it does have a ways yet to go to match Exchange IMO. Of course people have been saying this for years about various “Exchange killers” but I think they’re getting closer. For many years Linux advocacy was pining for a desktop alternative and we’re getting there with KDE/Gnome/Ubuntu etc. Open source is getting there.
By Dan on Jul 7, 2007 | Reply
Great article.. How would this compare to Kolab? http://kolab.org
It has no license limitations and Lookout clients can use the Toltec connector. Please keep in mind that I am not trying to draw a comparison as I have never used Zimbra.
Thanx
By Karl L. Gechlik on Jul 7, 2007 | Reply
I Never heard of it dan - any interest in doing a write up on it?
Thanks for participating!
By EJMS on Jul 8, 2007 | Reply
We use Zimbra as our main Mail Server and another Zimbra Server for our customers too, we have 80 schoools with 50 accounts each, and Zimbra works loke a charm!
Zimbra and the Zimbra Team ROCKS!
By Karl L. Gechlik on Jul 8, 2007 | Reply
ejms what are you paying per client if anything???
By Jauber on Jul 8, 2007 | Reply
ejms how it perform what is your server hardware like sorry for bad english i from the netherlands
By Charles Robinson on Jul 9, 2007 | Reply
I’ve been playing around with various versions of Zimbra for the past four or five years. It’s a great product, and if I weren’t such a fan of Notes and Domino I would be pushing Zimbra.
I’m in a company now that uses Exchange, and I’ll be lobbying hard to get that piece of junk ripped out and replaced with something that can actually be an asset instead of just a liability.
By NinjaAdmin on Jul 9, 2007 | Reply
Charles im in the same boat. why wont management ever listen to it?
By The Slothman on Jul 9, 2007 | Reply
Charles,
Can you please explain to everyone why you believe Lotus Notes/Domino is far and away superior to Exchange and even Zimbra.
I would do so, but I have been labeled on Digg a Linux fanboy and someone who doesn’t understand Exchange and the featuers(stop laughing…) that makes it the best collaboration platform out there.
————————
Some tech background on me and this article.
In 1999-2000 I worked in an exchange 5.5 shop. Liked the product. It was pretty straight forward and did what we needed it to do, which was little more than mail. Since then I have implemented 2000 in one place and looked at 2003. No 2007.
In 2001 I moved to a consulting firm which was an IBM/Lotus Solution Provider. And placed at a firm which I am now full time at after the consulting firm went out of business….My boss then, a jerk and idiot in many ways, but bright in others, said upon hearing of my disdain for the gangly, cumbersome Notes/Domino platform that I needed to give it time and that I would learn to appreciate it and love it.
That was the only thing he ever said that came true!
I do love Notes now. But it is clunky. It could be prettier and smoother in some ways, but the open nature of it, the standards compliance and security won me over BIG TIME. Even with Symantec at the Exchange shop I was at, we got nailed with Love Bug and Melissa….
The impetus for even looking at Zimbra here is this…our Lotus Notes CRM sucks monkey junk and SugarCRM is phenomenal, and cheap/free I might add. As well as we’re looking at putting in a DMS as well.
The problem is that up until a few weeks ago, there were no Sugar/Lotus plugins to tie the two together(there is now: http://www.linkpoint360.com ) as well as none of the DMS’ we’re looking at do either. However they all tie into Outlook…but do not require Exchange in the backend.
Great! I could tie Outlook to Domino if I wanted to. I could also change to a different mail server and move our workflow apps off of Notes which are admittedly clunky.
Enter Zimbra…it has been great and whether or not we migrate off of Notes is immaterial now due to the plug in, but we may still do it pending the review/end of this test phase and a final report/demonstation of Zimbra to the board.
By Karl L. Gechlik on Jul 9, 2007 | Reply
Go get em Sloth! I have been called a Mac Fanboy and a linux fan boy in the same day.
Just be smug in the fact more than 50,000 people have read your article and it was on the front page of digg for 2 days. It has almost 400 diggs. For a short article I think thats amazing.
Keep on Blogging! We got mad love for your talents here!!!!
_TheAdmiN_
By jwylie on Jul 9, 2007 | Reply
Hi Slothman and all.
Do a search on flickr for notes8beta screenshots, the latest version of Notes 8 is smooth, it supports ODF out of the box.
As for why it’s better than an email server?…it’s a secure distributed application server - that also does email - all in one box. Oh..it runs on multiple OS (windows, Linux etc) and it scales really well.
Have another look and I think you’ll be pleasantly suprised
By Karl L. Gechlik on Jul 9, 2007 | Reply
jwylie - How would you like to do a write up on it for AskTheAdmiN? Any interest from our pals in the UK?
Cheers!
By The Slothman on Jul 9, 2007 | Reply
JWYLIE: I’ll take a gander, thanks for the heads up. I’ve been meaning to head to Lotusphere one of these years.
Karl:
Notes 8 is still in Beta, although I think you can get a copy of the code in Beta, but it is due to ship November of this year or possibly Jan of 08.
Notes is still our platform, but with regard to the integration uses of Outlook, we may change the back end because upgrading to 7/8 may cause some of our workflow apps to break, and I don’t have the developer background to fix them in most cases…although I suspect I could do it with some lead time.
{edited to say}
My oh my…they have done WONDERS to the interface. Click this link to see ‘Hanover’
By bill on Aug 8, 2007 | Reply
WHAT AM I LOOKING @ WHAT IS HANOVER? A NEW CLIENT?????
By jasman on May 29, 2008 | Reply
Zimbra is OK, but in order to have the outlook connector you need to pay$$$$$$$
It is cheaper up-front but you need to renew your licences each year and so by year 3 you paid more than if you went with exchange. Year 4 you doubled your expenses. If you do the ZCO(opensource), it is cheaper but Zimbramaniacs cut out too much to be usable. And now that Yahoo bought them I would be very leery of it and even worse MS is trying to become partners with Yahoo. Conclusion, stay away from zimbra.
By AskTheAdmin on May 29, 2008 | Reply
Great insights JasMan - so what do you use? Are you an Exchange guy or do you have another favorite? With wrting passion like that for Technology you should be writing for us!
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