On Fri, 04 Dec 2009 21:46:10 -0500
Paul Gress <pgress at optonline.net> wrote:
> Mike Meyer wrote:
> > On Fri, 04 Dec 2009 16:34:36 -0500
> > Paul Gress <pgress at optonline.net> wrote:
> >
> >> Tomas Bodzar wrote:
> >>> OpenOffice != MS Office
> >> Gee, I don't want to start a war, but what can you do in MS Office you
> >> can't do in Openoffice.
> > Reliably share documents with people using MS-Office. OpenOffice is
> > better than pretty much anything but MS-Office (which isn't so hot at
> > this itself) than that, but it's always been an issue for me.
> I can open most (~85%) MS Office ndocuments with no problems. For the
> ones with problems it's just usually two things. [...]
Yeah, it depends on what you're doing, and who you're dealing with. I
tend to get wacky clients and wacky uses, so that I've even seen
problems sharing between different versions of MS Office - which most
people find hard to fathom.
> > Besides, he also said Outlook, which could mean a lot more than just
> > "some form of user mail agent". It may be enough; he may need Sunbird
> > as well; he may need a better MAPI client; he may need a serious
> > enterprise suite. Without more details, it's hard to say.
> Evolution is considered very similar to Outlook, but I have never used
> it. Opera functions similar to Outlook also, and can import Outlook
> e-mails, but also has browser function built it. Thunderbird is not
> similar, but still imports Outlook e-mails.
For that matter, Pine functions "similar" to outlook as well. It all
depends on what you're doing. The problem is, Outlook does at least
two other things besides email: shared calender systems and
desktop/pda PIM syncing. Worse yet, for the first two - email and
shared calenders - it can use a microsoft proprietary protocol or a
standard one. There really aren't standards for pda sync, though
SyncML is trying. Evolution also provides all three - but only
provides partial support for the proprietary mail protocol, no support
for
If all he needs is a mail client talking to his ISP's server, then
pretty much any modern UMA will do. If he needs mail & calender on a
server he controls, the something like evolution, or
Thunderbird+Sunbird, or probably a few other things can work. If he
needs those through exchange server that he can't replace or
configure, then he may have serious problems. If he needs PDA sync -
especially using the tools that sync with corporate databases - then
he's pretty much SOL.
<mike
--
Mike Meyer <mwm at mired.org> http://www.mired.org/consulting.html
Independent Network/Unix/Perforce consultant, email for more information.
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