This is a topic which we did some fairly extensive research here at Myrio (Seattle--originally from Reno when we were called SourceNet). About 4 years ago we put Exchange in to support our rapidly growing telecom startup. We had hired a Director of IT with extensive M$ background and experience, so it made sense. It was supposed to be a temporary solution until we could bring up and industrial strength cross-platform groupware solution. 4 years later we are still running Exchange.
The power of Exchange lies in the tight integration with Outlook. What sets it apart for most companies is: 1) Corporate address book with resource scheduling (conference rooms, projectors etc.), 2) group calendaring 3) Outlook's integration of Mail, calendar and address book into one easy to use interface. If setup and maintained carefully it works pretty well.
Our biggest problem with Exchange 2000 (the current version we are running), is that despite improvements to the management capabilities and 3rd party backup software integration, it is still very "clunky". When we backup the mail/calendar database "the store", we are never 98% certain we can restore an individual mailbox, let alone an individual mail message or event. We have developed a "warm" standby backup approach that mitigates the effects of a corrupt message store, but this workaround leads to a very high cost of ownership.
We also recognized that replacing Outlook on most desktops WOULD NOT happen.
So, we looked for products that: 1) Worked with Outlook clients, 2) Provided the same capabilities as Exchange/Outlook, 3) Would integrate with our UNIX backup software and systems (we use M$ desktops, but develop our software on Linux and Solaris), 4) Would run (server component) on Linux, Solaris or Mac OSX.
Cost was not a primary driver since we expected to pay for upgrades to Exchange 2003/Office.
We found 3 products that met the stated criteria.
1) Oracle Collaboration Suite http://www.oracle.com/collabsuite/
2) Sun Java Messaging Server (not really Java) http://wwws.sun.com/software/product_categories/ email_calendar_collaboration.html
3) Communigate Pro http://www.stalker.com/
4) Exchange 2003/Outlook
To make a long story shorter, we decided on Communigate Pro because of its flawless (http://www.infoworld.com/article/03/12/12/49TCstalker_1.html) integration with Outlook. We installed a trial system and migrated some of our users over to the new server (like secretly replacing the house coffee with Folgers crystals) and experience zero interruptions.
Other groupware solutions didn't meet our requirements.
If there is interest, there is more to the story, please email me directly. I am sure our IT Director would be happy to relay additional details. We discussed this extensively at the Seattle Linux Users Group http://www.seaslug.org.
Regards,
Ryan Petty [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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