Replacing Microsoft Exchange

[David Keen]

Thomas Cameron wrote:

> Um, to not recognize that Outlook is on something like 90% desktops is to
> ignore the reality of the marketplace.  If we could get something to
> replace Exchange on the backend but make it seamless for the end users, it
> would be a HUGE win for F/OSS.  If we could then wean the users off of MS
> Office and Outlook to OpenOffice and Evolution on Windows (if it existed),
> it would make it that much easier to move them to Linux on the desktop. 
> There is a method to my madness...  It's just not feasible to move to
> Linux on the desktop tomorrow.  It will need to be a gradual change, baby
> steps.
> 
> 
>>There are other options out there and the rules seem to be, if you want
>>to use Outlook as the client app...you will have to pay. Seems fair
>>enough.
> 
> 
> Never said it wasn't fair.  All I said was it would be great if we could
> replace Exchange on the backend while still using Outlook or an Outlook
> workalike.
> 
> Thomas
> 

We have recently implemented Bynari Insight Server and while it's true 
the Outlook connector isn't open source it lets us replace the exchange 
back end with open source components (postfix, cyrus, etc).

Now our windows users can use Outlook as if they were talking to an 
exchange server and our linux users can use evolution because the 
backend is IMAP.

Everyone can access the shared address book because it is just LDAP.

Getting rid of exchange brings us one step closer to moving all our 
users to a linux desktop!