Toby Richards wrote an opinion article for NewsForge, claiming that for him, Linux won't get mainstream until Evolution - or another capable Outlook-like client - gets optimized and offers 100% compatibility with Exchange. In the comments section of Newsforge readers offered more reasons as to why Linux is not mainstream, offering a view on their needs. My take: While for my personal, home usage of Linux my needs are different, I agree with Toby that companies won't switch their desktops if full Exchange compatibility isn't reached and if Evolution stops being the memory beast it currently is.
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Member since:2005-07-06
Member since:2005-07-06
Member since:2005-06-28
My husband's company of over 1000 employees are using Exchange, not Domino. The company is unix-friendly (many of their dev systems are running solaris, freebsd or linux), but they would not consider moving their desktops to linux without a good Exchange client. You see, their desktops are all running Windows...
Member since:2005-07-29
Why waste time trying to become Exchange compliant, if the community is trying to squash Exchange? Why not instead work to create a server-side Outlook-compatibile Exchange replacement? Linux has been better accepted server side than client side, so leverage that acceptance with a server side replacement. Then, there is no more "must be Exchange compatibile" argument against moving the clients.
Note my personal belief here - I believe a company with majority Windows admins is not ready for Linux desktops (who supports the desktops? and their interactions with the servers?). A company with majority *nix admins is ready for Linux desktops.
Member since:2005-12-31
Well there is a solution out there and i'm sure 99.99% of the regular readers here know what it is.. right?
http://www.linuxworld.com.au/index.php?id=1498637333
"The best way to ensure 100 per cent compatibility with Exchange/Outlook features is to run Outlook itself. Crossover Office from Codeweavers (http://www.codeweavers.com) allows you to do just this. "
Member since:
2005-07-06
Many, many companies use Notes/Domino. For those, Domino runned on linux since years. Now, the Notes client is available as well.
ARMONK, NY - 10 Jul 2006: IBM today announced the availability of IBM Lotus® Notes® on Linux®, the industry's first business-grade collaboration software to support Linux on the desktop. Lotus Notes on Linux now provides millions of Lotus Notes users worldwide with software that enables an open desktop alternative to proprietary desktop operating systems.
The openness and flexibility of the Linux desktop combined with widespread availability of server software running on Linux has increased demand for tested and market-proven, desktop applications such as Lotus Notes. For the first time, IBM is delivering business-grade e-mail, group scheduling and thousands of high-value Notes applications that run on the Linux desktop. Combined with server support for Intel and mainframe Linux, IBM now offers end-to-end support for Linux on the Lotus Notes® and Domino® 7 collaboration platform.
http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/19940.wss