* Colin McKinnon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> [Mar 27. 2002 09:36]: > Hopefully this isn't too off-topic.... > > After running a successful and reliable Linux/Sendmail installation for 3 > years, the boss has decided we absolutely must have Microsoft Exchange.
"I've got a solution, now to find a problem"... :) > While I would like to be able to provide group scheduling and todo lists, I > can't see any way of doing this with open source systems. Samsung Contact > offers some hope in that it will still run on Linux. MS Outlook will not > cope with the volume of Email I receive. Nor will it (apparrently) > automatically sort incoming mail without MS Exchange. HP OpenMail/Samsung Contact is certainly a viable replacement. Nowhere near as costly as Exchange. > > Anybody any sound advice regarding the pitfalls? Can one implement > hot-desking using Outlook? Currently we use Eudora on the desktops, and > were planning to transfer the data and config to a file server to allow this. Hotdesking? > > What other nasty's await us? I previously worked at site where there were > about 50 users connected to a MS Exchange server which seemed to be a full > time job administering it, and was very unreliable. Unfortunately my boss > thinks that I'm just being obstinate so supporting URLs would be a help. Ok, as someone who recently rescued a company from installing Exchange :) The costs associated with Exchange are enormous, you're looking at ~200GBP per user, just in Client Access Licenses. That doesn't take into account the cost of the Exchange hardware or software, and it needs a fairly beefy machine. It also takes a fair bit of administration. I know for a fact that the Group Scheduling can be done using POP (basically, changes to the calendars are communicated via e-mail), the only problem is that you can't use IMAP for some reason. If you've got someone with their heart set upon a solution, not a problem, then you're in trouble. There's a variety of Groupware products for Linux, only a couple of 'em are particularly mature at the moment. I would recommend the commercial CyberScheduler from crosswind.com, we trialled it at w4t, and it's certainly stable and easy to use. The only other, truly stable product, that I know of, is ACS (the ArsDigita product) it uses Oracle as a db backend (either a crowd-pleaser or a cost, in which case look at the less stable OpenACS). With RedHat's recent purchase of it, it may be seen as a viable option, it's a nice product and utilises lots of buzzwords. HTH Kevin -------------------------------------------------------------------- http://www.lug.org.uk http://www.linuxportal.co.uk http://www.linuxjob.co.uk http://www.linuxshop.co.uk --------------------------------------------------------------------
