Tony Hlabse wrote: > All former MAC loyalist hate anything that says MS on it. But you > might want > to look at www.slipstick.com for any customizing of Outlook.
I wouldn't jump the gun on the whole Mac loyalist thing. First Class does offer very rich collaborative features in a very easy to use and administer package. Ease of use is very important in educational environments, trust me. Most teachers are wary of technology, and tend not to be as comfortable with it as even the most basic of office workers. The First Class server also has lower hardware requirements than Exchange, and the client can communicate over a standard TCP port, allowing end users to run the client from their home computers over any type of Internet connection. Again, a big plus for teachers who do a lot of work from home, after hours (as most teachers do). That being said, I wouldn't necessarily jump the gun to First Class without thinking things through. Your user base will need to be completely retrained, and all those wonderful collaborative features will take time to be learned and used by your faculty. First Class is also not cheap. While they claim it has a lower TCO than Exchange/Outlook, they don't take into account any kind of enterprise licensing or educational discounts from Microsoft. We evaluated a possible switch a few years ago that got vetoed on cost (this was the same year I was doing my W2k migration and we purchased a student record management package). We have an enterprise licensing agreement with MS through the University of Maryland System, so we pay next to nothing for our MS licenses. It was also vetoed on time: my time to learn and install the software, faculty and staff time to be trained and adapt. Finally, it was vetoed on migration: their answer for getting our Exchange data into First Class was to keep Exchange around until you no longer needed the data. I'm also not aware of any antivirus of antispam products for First Class, and their SMTP engine isn't all that. I would front-end it with a *nix box and a real MTA (postfix, qmail, exim), but I do this with Exchange boxes too. You can do most (if not all) of what First Class has to offer with Exchange and Outlook, but it will take some time and programming. Since you've already spent the money on a 2003 upgrade, I'd look into outsourcing some Outlook customization work. I'll bet you find its cheaper to do that than migrate to First Class. You can also do a lot of collaboration on the web, which is the path we took for student/faculty communication. We're currently using School Center for this (www.schoolcenter.com), but I'm looking at adapting the Midgard PHP Framework to do this type of stuff in-house. Steven --- Steven Dickenson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Network Administrator The Key School, Annapolis Maryland _________________________________________________________________ List posting FAQ: http://www.swinc.com/resource/exch_faq.htm Web Interface: http://intm-dl.sparklist.com/cgi-bin/lyris.pl?enter=exchange&text_mode=&lang=english To unsubscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Exchange List admin: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe via postal mail, please contact us at: Jupitermedia Corp. Attn: Discussion List Management 475 Park Avenue South New York, NY 10016 Please include the email address which you have been contacted with.
