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Linux Business

HP's OpenMail: I'm Not Dead Yet 302

Posted by Hemos from the still-kickin' dept.
Jon Hill writes "It looks as if HP's OpenMail system is not dead yet and development of the project has been assumed by Samsung's software division. This is great news considering OpenMail was the only serious Unix-based competitor to Microsoft Exchange. Now if only it was strongly marketed and made well known, enterprise administrators such as myself could embrace it." For those of not familiar, essentially OpenMail is the *only* e-mail platform out there, besides Exchange that will support a whole slew of Microsoft Outlook features - something necessary in the enterprise, despite that people should know better.
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HP's OpenMail: I'm Not Dead Yet More

HP's OpenMail: I'm Not Dead Yet

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  • Security (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    give users the ability to run arbitrary shell commands [stanford.edu]

    • Re:Security (Score:2, Informative)

      by shrdlu ( 42466 )
      give users the ability to run arbitrary shell commands Well, sure, but did you bother to note the date that the problem occurred on? That advisory has a timestamp of: Date: Fri, 29 May 1998 16:24:28 -0700

      I'm sure that it's probably filled with security holes, but it seems fair to point out that one was fixed long ago.

  • I've never used Exchange, so I'm seriously interested in what people like about it. Why do companies feel it's better than a standard IMAP/LDAP setup?

    • Its the shared calendar (Score:2, Interesting)

      by ahornby ( 1734 )
      With exchange the calendar is shared between users, so you can do things like schedule meetings without having to phone round first.

      The Evolution calendar stuff has all the features needed except that your calendar isn't accessible to other users.

      Hopefully someone will write a free iCal server and an evolution backend to it.
    • I don't remain convinced about the decision makers thinking it is loaded with necessary features. Instead, I think it is because there is a significant amount of techs/companies/consultants that claim to have experience and knowledge of exchange. Therefore they justify finding someone to support it will be easy. I find this extremely amusing since if every company suddenly shifted to open source, MCSE's everywhere would be hitting the books for open source. The chicken and the egg.

      If I were to try to point out why people are drawn to Exchange, it is because these companies are already deeply stuck in Microsoft territory. I am a big open source advocate so don't take these next statements the wrong way.

      Microsoft does a really good job (mostly lately) of their products playing well with each other. In less than an hour, you can have a good VB app up and running that can interoperate with any and all of MS servers. Query a SQL Server, send mail through an Exchange server, even query a domain controller for a list of all user accounts.

      Is this really the greatest thing since sliced bread? No, but it is this sort of interoperability that is seeping deep into the ears of management and making them approve purchase requests for MS powered servers left and right. "What, we can make it all work together relatively easy? We don't have to hire more people to make it work? GREAT! Where is my pen?"

      • Re:The Chicken and the Egg (Score:5, Insightful)

        by alen ( 225700 ) on Tuesday December 18, 2001 @09:53AM (#2719355)
        Exchange is actually one of Microsoft's best products. Unlike the NT registry and SAM database it's based on LDAP and a dumbed down SQL database engine. In addition to the workgroup features like calendars, team folders, public folders it has a ton of other great features.

        One is called Deleted Item Retention Time. You set the number of days and when a user deletes an email it's not really deleted for the specified days. If he realizes he made a mistake restoration is from the Outlook client and takes seconds saving the admin time from going to the back up tapes. For businesses like law firms it's a life saver since they are required to keep records and emails for five years or so. They simply buy a lot of storage and set a deleted item retention item of 1600 days or so and it's a secondary back up.

        A second feature is single instance storage. You send a file out to 50 people it gets stored once in the database saving you storage space.

        Then third party back up programs have a feature called brick level back up's where you can back up individual mailboxes. If you delete on by accident restoration is simple. Exchange 2000 has this feature out of the box.

        Exchange is scalable. It's overkill for small offices and I've supported it for a government agency with 35,000 employees and 300 Exchange servers. It scales very well.

        A good Exchange anti-virus program like Trend Micro Scanmail 3.7 has file blocking features and greatly eases the management of your anti-virus strategy.

        Since email is in a database searching for messages is easy.

        And the global address book is great. Users don't have to keep their own huge address book and greatly minimizes the calls to the admin of I sent out this email but it came back returned and asking you to track down an email address.

        Sure you can cobble together a few products for most of the functionality and perform some of the usability features manually, but you'll spend more time while the CEO is asking you to restore an email from a year ago.
        • I like how it corrupts its Jet (Access) database and loses email. I also like the "bad message" feature that crashes store.exe. And the extremely slow message delivery via IMAP. Oh, and the open relay feature.

          35,000 mailboxes on 300 servers, huh? Wow, that's like, 116 mailboxes per server. Yeah, scales really well. You would need a multiple of that number of machines if you ran an SMTP/IMAP/LDAP setup on Unix. Of course, the multiplier would be something like 0.01, but...

          I've found that not using Outlook and Exchange greatly eases my anti-virus strategy. I suppose if you have a global address book of 35,000 people, 20 of whom any given person would need to actually correspond with, then you reall want to keep those Melissa-type microsoft viruses under control.

          We used a unix-based email system at my previous company, and hey! I could back up individual mailboxes. "Brick level backup." Snort. And since email was stored in regular files, searching for messages was easy. My CEO had dat tapes going back into the 80s with his email on it.
          • Forgot to add The US Army Corps of Engineers has 35,000 employees in the US, Europe, Asia, Middle East and South America. And they don't have a full ATM backbone with unlimited bandwith. THe still use frame relay on a lot of circuits so local exchange servers are a must.

          • Wow, that's like, 116 mailboxes per server. Yeah, scales really well.

            Well, yes, you're right.

            A single Linux box with sendmail and imap would seem to be a lot more capable.

            My workplace generally uses MS Exchange and they do indeed require more servers and tinier inboxes than I am accustomed to in a Unix environment. Probably the license fees are higher, too.

            But, to be fair, I think the reason those Exchange servers only handle a fraction of the workload is that they are really being asked to do a lot more work behind the scenes: running SQL, running LDAP, managing calendars, deleting vbs attachments and replacing them with text messages before the Lookout clients get hold of them, providing GUIs to the admins, etc. I have to think a Unix server doing all those things would be burdened, too.

            The users are generally quite happy using Exchange, except for the viri and for the limitations on their mailbox sizes and occasional mysteries about old backed-up email disappearing.

            Interestingly, though, we have UNIX based sendmail servers ahead of the Exchange servers, which makes for a nice fast means of checking inbound mail. It costs nothing and gives a layer of protection and flexibility.

            On my end as a user, I'll use fetchmail when my inbox is migrated from local and NFS mountable mbox files to whatever the format is on the Exchange server.

            Exchange reliability has been pretty good since a few teething problems a month or two after it was installed. It's not quite where it should be: the Goner worm caused the Exchange admins to shutdown service for a few hours, which inconvenienced more than a few users. Otherwise, it's been humming for a couple of years.

            Exchange is a good product. I would really hate to see it used as lever for lockin, but I fear it might.

            FWIW, Domino was a very close contender in our evaluation process. I have no idea what its capabilities are these days, but you should probably take a look at it, too.

            • But, to be fair, I think the reason those Exchange servers only handle a fraction of the workload is that they are really being asked to do a lot more work behind the scenes

              True that Exchange versus Sendmail is radically unfair. But if you want Apples To Apples, Exchange is significantly less scalable than Lotus Notes or Novell Groupwise. Significantly Less users per server, less mail moved per hour, etc etc.

              Now, I'm not saying that scalability concerns outweigh the pretty client. They probably don't.

              But, Fact: Exchange is just not built for speed -- Look at the architecture diagram! There's about 2000 little boxes on there as old early 90s X.400 system was adapted for modern usage. It's an overly complex bloatpile that works only because MS has massive resources to make it work.
          • Is write caching turned off on your SCSI adapter? I've seen a database corruption on Exchange, but it was easily fixed running isinteg utility.

        • One is called Deleted Item Retention Time. You set the number of days and when a user deletes an email it's not really deleted for the specified days. If he realizes he made a mistake restoration is from the Outlook client and takes seconds saving the admin time from going to the back up tapes. For businesses like law firms it's a life saver since they are required to keep records and emails for five years or so. They simply buy a lot of storage and set a deleted item retention item of 1600 days or so and it's a secondary back up.

          Just out of curiosity, how do you get an email back when it's deleted when the only thing on tape is a collection of large proprietary binary files which make up the entire private mail store?

          Then third party back up programs have a feature called brick level back up's where you can back up individual mailboxes. If you delete on by accident restoration is simple. Exchange 2000 has this feature out of the box.

          Answered my own question, I suppose. :-)

          And the global address book is great. Users don't have to keep their own huge address book and greatly minimizes the calls to the admin of I sent out this email but it came back returned and asking you to track down an email address.

          Perhaps I'm using it totally wrong but at least in Exchange Server 5.5 the GAL is for local mailboxes only. This was years ago but we had to create a public folder and use Outlook to store contacts in it.

          Sure you can cobble together a few products for most of the functionality and perform some of the usability features manually, but you'll spend more time while the CEO is asking you to restore an email from a year ago.

          I'll be the first to admit that Exchange Server and Outlook are one killer combination. However like I have stated several times over the years, I'll be god-damned if I'm going to lock up my company's data like that. The data store is proprietary. The access tools are proprietary. Maybe I'm getting old and crochety but I've been bit before (too many times in fact) to just let it go. I want to be able to get the format of the data files and protocols so that when I want to do X I can go do it, hire someone to do it or otherwise do what the hell I want with my data, when I want and without some motherly giant cooing "Now now, dear. You don't really need to do it like that."

          • Back up software has a MS Exchange aware back up agent for online backups. We use Veritas Netback up datacenter. As for deleted item retention time it was introduced in SP3 and all you have to do is go to deleted items folder, click on tools menu and select restore deleted items. You then get a choice to restore a single message or multiple messages.

            As for the GAL you can either create custom receipents or setup directory synchronization with other organizations. It's more a feature for government agencies and companies with thousands of employees.
          • I'll be the first to admit that Exchange Server and Outlook are one killer combination. However like I have stated several times over the years, I'll be god-damned if I'm going to lock up my company's data like that. The data store is proprietary. The access tools are proprietary. Maybe I'm getting old and crochety but I've been bit before (too many times in fact) to just let it go.

            You are absolutely, 100% correct. This is our company's policy as well, both for development products and (most importantly) data: it cannot require a proprietary product that would, under any circumstances, leave us beholden to any vendor, no matter how benevolent. Let's face it, the nicest, most well meaning vendor in the world can, through no fault of their own, be run out of business. Indeed, likely by a much less benevolent vendor who would just love to keep your data hostage *cough*Microsoft*cough*.

            On a personal level I was using Applix Word on GNU/Linux. A great, albeit proprietary, software suite for office applications and a wonderful word processor. Not as bloated as Microsoft Word, yet having many of the snazzier features that actually facilitate getting one's work done. I was using it extensively while working on a novel and screenplay I'm writing.

            I dumped it.

            Not because of any missing features, or price, or anythnig like that, but because, one day, it was reluctant to start. Turned out I'd clobbered a font it wanted when doing a dist-upgrade against debian-testing (the next apt-get fixed it, but th e whole event scared me). I had, for a few minutes, the horrifying feeling that weeks of work had just become as inaccessible to me as the surface of the moon.

            Once I got Applix running again I converted everything to HTML, then spent several days cleaning up the crappy HTML Applix generates, into a more readable and maintainable format. Not the handiest format for word processing around, but adequate and, most importantly, very accessible. I will never fear loosing my hard work again. What is more, now that I've finally gotten around to learning some emacs (something I've been procrastinating for years) I find I can work with HTML files as quickly and conviniently as I was the Applix stuff, within the self-imposed limitations that HTML implies.

            You are 100%, absolutely correct. Data is by far the most valuable asset on a computer (exceeding the value of the hardware and software combined in most cases), and storing it in anything other than an open, non-proprietary format is a recipe for disaster. It appears this is becoming aparent to industry already ... I suspect with a few more jerks of the costomer's chain by Microsoft this fact will become even more apparent to many more people and companies down the road, when years of corporate records and correspondence are at stake because of soemthing as asinine as a file format change, rather than merely a few tens of documents that are suddenly inconvinient for the secretary to access.
        • 35,000 users / 300 servers => 117 users per server. I could do that with PostFix and 300 matchbox '386es! IBM have TWO MILLION USERS on ONE zSeries box, no sweat, for much less than the software cost alone of running two million Exchange clients. Now that is `scales well'!

          Damn Microsoft and their abuse of terminology! An `embedded' system should not require 64 or 128MB of RAM and gigabytes of disk!PS: visit Bynari [bynari.com] for another Exchange alternative, including alternative clients.
    • The problem is 'Outlook' has many many smart features such as shared calendars, netfolders, meeting scheduling, kitchen sink etc.
      Unfortunately, without an exchange server, they are flakey to say the least.
      (RANT: Exchange corporate has 2 modes of operation. Internet and 'corporate'. The former supports IMAP mail, and allows you to send Plain Text/HTML/RTF by default. It also allows you to over ride the text setting with 'Plain Text' on a per user basis. - not any other format. The latter does not support IMAP. Will allow the same 'default' formats but only allows an override of 'always send RTF' to this user.
      Annoying but we can cope. Unfortunately, the undocumented 'feature' is that Shared folders/calendars etc. DO NOT WORK without RTF.
      What kind of monkey designs a program with two exclusive sets of features?
      No. Don't answer that. I already know.
    • Exchange is LDAP. It was also the first version of active directory which in it's present form conforms to most of the standards.
    • It's basically an ease of use thing, I've tried out various IMAP/LDAP client/server combinations but non of them are as easy as for the user as Exchange/Outlook are. There are also things like calendering and forums built in and delivery and read receipts that are easy to use. I also need to have an e-mail system that can talk to X400 systems easily - granted not a universal requirement - and Exchange copes with X400 and SMTP/ESMTP well (plus others like MS Mail, ccMail etc.)

      While I prefer Unix/Linux for most server tasks as they are great OS's, I prefer Exchange as an e-mail platform.
    • The major features of exchange is not so much the email but the shared calendaring and task lists etc. Exchange will also integrate with things like Project so that when you are assigned a new task for a Project it is given to you as a task in your exchagne mailbox.

      *This is not flamebit*
      For whats its worth, I actually like exchange. It is a bit bloated however of the 150+ people we've moved to exchange from groupwise and plain sendmail+POP none have complained and most (those that use the calendaring, special forms, etc) say they think it is great.

    • Killer Feature = Shared Calendaring (Score:5, Interesting)

      by EricLivingston ( 162103 ) <ericNO@SPAMthelivingstons.org> on Tuesday December 18, 2001 @10:13AM (#2719420) Homepage
      We have a small company of about 8 people and while our Web site is BSD and our time tracking system is Linux, I've recently had to bring up a Win2k Server box with Exchange 2000 for the SOLE purpose of being able to do group calendaring - that is, the ability to:

      • Create a new meeting
      • Bring up a list of employees and check their schedule availability
      • Schedule the meeting for an open slot on everyone's calendar
      • Invite all the participants through an email
      • Have those invitees respond to the mail by accepting or declining the meeting
      • Have their responses automatically tallied by the server, allowing me to log in and check on the invite status at any time
      • Move and/or cancel the meeting, with automatic update emails sent to all participants which will update their own calendars at the push of a button

      I researched for days looking for a Linux/BSD based Open-source solution for this functionality, and I didn't find anything even remotely close. I tried to get OpenMail, but HP has shut down the download area so you can't get it anymore. Products like Evolution are slick and have a good email interface, but are single-user only calendaring systems, with no (automated) group coordination at all. Frankly, I find this type of functionality critical in a company of even 8 employees: I just don't see how companies can get along without some kind of group calendaring solution.

      This is definately a major gap in the overall functionality of Open Source software in general, which is one reason why Exchange/HP OpenMail/Lotus Notes will continue to thrive.

      • You can share a calendar w/o Exchange server - just did it. All that the Outlook clients need to do is to be able to send email to each other. Granted it may take up to 20 minutes to update but it can work w/o the server. It can share folders with the Msft mail 3 'postoffice' too (bunch of passive directories on a server).
      • Frankly, I find this type of functionality critical in a company of even 8 employees: I just don't see how companies can get along without some kind of group calendaring solution.

        Frankly, I find the ability to sync my calendar with my iPAQ and cell phone even more critical. I can live with a simple email scheduling an appointment and inserting it into my calendar manually. I do want to have my calendar with me when I am away from my office though.

        Is there reliable syncing s/w for iPAQs and Nokia phones that do not require Windows on the desktop?

      • Very easy. Steltor [steltor.com].
      • I researched for days looking for a Linux/BSD based Open-source solution for this functionality

        What can I say? ``Bynari?'' Visit http://www.bynari.com/ (no commercial connection).

    • I never understood why the extra stuff (calendaring and file storage, mostly) was in the *mail client* in the first place.

      But then, I never understood using Word as a mail editor either.
      • Only the client features are in Outlook. The Exchange server has the server side features for shared calendars, etc.
      • I never understood why the extra stuff (calendaring and file storage, mostly) was in the *mail client*

        1) It solves a technological problem by allowing a mail-based workflow for meeting scheduling (which turns out to be a pretty complex process: invite-respond-reschedule-accept-etc).

        2) It solves a lUser problem by putting everything in one place.

        3) It solves a political problem by putting one sticker price on a broad range of functionality. Shared calendaring software has been around forever, but nobody bought or used it until it was tacked onto the mail client.
  • The downside to this is the they wont be open sourcing it [openmail.com]. The upside I suppose is that it will be actively developed and will retain its corporate marketshare.
    • Say, wouldn't this be a nice Open Source project? Developing such a system on completely open standards (call it ReallyOpenMail or so *grin*). With lots of hooks for virus scanners and such.

    • Re:..Up and Down (Score:2, Informative)

      by rikkards ( 98006 )
      The other downside is that it means users need to use .pst files (this is what some sales guy for Openmail said, it may have changed by now) and PST files can be bad [swinc.com] (especially #1) With Exchange you can store everything in the server's database which makes it easier to back up.
  • How many people are there going to bethat are so ingrained with Microsoft products that they insist on using Outlook despite its many many flaws, yet they are willing to choose anything other than exchange?
    • Those who have windows users with laptops who can't understand any other mail client, but the admins run a 'proper' shop and have Exim on their MXs.
      Just tell them that it _is_ exchange (honest) and they'll shut up and go away, happy that they've thrown a buzzword at you that makes them look knowlegable.
      Cynic? Of course not, what makes you say that?
      • Just tell them that it _is_ exchange (honest) and they'll shut up and go away, happy that they've thrown a buzzword at you that makes them look knowlegable.

        And then one of them will try to schedule a meeting with the group calendar feature, only to find that his Outlook isn't configured for Exchange after all, and he'll be all confused. He'll call you for help.

        If you worked for me, I'd fucking fire you on the spot.

        Lying to your users-- whether they're your peers or your bosses or your subordinates-- is never okay.

    • Re:Outlook but not exchange? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by killmenow ( 184444 ) on Tuesday December 18, 2001 @09:54AM (#2719358)
      We use OpenMail. I read about the discontinuing development last February with much sadness.

      When I heard about the deal with Samsung a few weeks ago (we got a letter), I was pleased. I had already read what Bruce Perens had said about open sourcing it...it just wasn't going to happen. He would've like it to (as would I) but there was too much code licensed from third parties, etc. that would have to be re-written before it could be open-sourced, and the whole point was: they weren't developing it anymore.

      At any rate, when I came on board at my present employer, the front end client (Outlook) was deeply embedded into the environment here. I am still working on weening people off of it. But the great thing about OpenMail is that I can let them keep Outlook if they want. Believe it or not, when dealt with properly, Outlook is not so bad. The end-users love it. They really don't know and don't care what happens behind the scenes.

      OpenMail gives me the flexibility to use any IMAP/LDAP client I want, or the web interface if I so choose, or Outlook. It lets the Outlook users have a system directory, shared folders, and shared calendars...all nice features...without buying into Exchange. It also lets me control what the Outlook users can do. Every time they connect to the server, I can send them a MOTD, reset their security settings to my way, and force all incoming/outgoing mail to be plain text if I so please. I can limit the size of their mailboxes, and I can set up gateways to just about every other type of messaging system I want. I can scan for viruses in attachments at the server and force Outlook to block all attachments of an executable type...whether the server detects a virus or not.

      As for the administrative tools, the command line tools are the bomb, but take some getting used to...and the GUI admin client basically sucks.

      Overall, I love OpenMail and was glad to pay for the licenses. We have about 100 users hitting the server via Outlook, Netscape Mail, the Web interface, and we even have a whole department with old DOS PCs, accessing their mail via a packet driver and PC-PINE!!! (They refuse to upgrade because it works for them and as the adage goes...if it ain't broke, don't fix it.)
      • We use OpenMail. I read about the discontinuing development last February with great happiness.

        My servers run NT. I would have preferred *NIX but it would have taken another year or two of paperwork to get the purchase order for *NIX boxes through management. I want my servers to send email notifications when certain events occur. Normally, I would just use the windows messaging API. Unfortunately, the OpenMail MAPI drivers refuse to resolve addresses outside of Outlook. I get a lot of 'net send' messages these days.

        In client side processes, I was able to automate email. I had to get a reference to an Outlook folder and use that to create and send the message, but it works. Mostly. Trying to send a message to Doe, John when there is also a Doe, John C. in the OpenMail address book gives an ambiguous address error.

        The real problem with anything from HP is that they couldn't write a decent driver if their life depended on it.

        • Trying to send a message to Doe, John when there is also a Doe, John C. in the OpenMail address book gives an ambiguous address error.
          We have had similar issues...and that address resolution is probably the one thing about OpenMail that has been a bother, now that you mention it. But, we worked around it in this way:

          1. Ensure every user has a valid and unique internet e-mail address
          2. send e-mails via SMTP when events occur.
          3. Use aliases or distribution lists so you're sending e-mails to roles instead of names (like admin or support instead of Doe, John)

          We do this for several applications and it works fine.
      • Every time they connect to the server, I can send them a MOTD, reset their security settings to my way, and force all incoming/outgoing mail to be plain text if I so please.

        How does that work, exactly?

        If the message includes both an HTML part and a text part, I guess you could strip the HTML part and assume the text part contains the entire message.

        But what if there is only the HTML part? Does OpenMail (or whatever does what you referred to) just change the MIME type but leave the content alone? Then every recipient will get an email full of raw HTML source, and the user won't know until he starts getting complaints from recipients-- obviously non-optimal.

        Or does OpenMail try to somehow intelligently convert the HTML into plain text, dropping all the formatting but keeping important things like line and paragraph breaks?

        Either way, I'd expect that it wouldn't work all that well. Is there something going on with OpenMail that allows it to do what you said in some way that doesn't destroy messages?

  • It would be great it we could get some choices in this market. I only worry that not enough people will become aware of their options. That, however, would collide with the attitude among the higher ups in my company: When there is only one option, you can't make a wrong decision. As more options become available in the marketplace I think we'll see a shakeout of bad IT managers as their inability to make good decisions becomes more evident. I think there's a lot of cost cutting to be done in a lot of IT departments. Email would be a great place to start.

    • I couldn't agree more. I've been spending all of my free time putting together documents and a plan to get my company to switch to Linux workstations and Linux/*BSD servers. It's a major multi-national corporation, and if we slowly migrate (successfully), I guarantee it'll be documented in at least a few industry publications.

      My point being that if IT managers and developers see articles of success, cost cutting, and other improvements, their interest peaks. Doesn't matter what platform or language it's about. All you need to do is raise their interest so maybe others will try the same, and once it's visible enough, others will come into the market to compete with software like this.

      I sure hope my company will look beyond Microsoft... and I'm going to do everything in my power to make management aware of their options.
  • If Samsung is smart they will recruit support from palm or any number of other PDA companies so that when/if Openmail gets a larger portion of the market share users can continue to sync their contacts and datebooks. It may not seem crucial now but 10 years ago nobody needed more then 640k memory.
  • a whole slew of Microsoft Outlook features - something necessary in the enterprise

    Can somebody tell me what these features are, compared to what you'd get with sendmail/qmail / some-random-pop/imap-client ?
    • Shared calenders, meeting scheduling, notes, public folders, ldap integration.
    • Can somebody tell me what these features are, compared to what you'd get with sendmail/qmail / some-random-pop/imap-client ?

      I'd make a wager it's things like calander sharing, address book sharing a la LDAP, note setup for meetings and scheduling. Newer versions have things like concurrent developement of documents and other nifty features, or so I'm told.

    • Re:What is this slew you speak of? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by sql*kitten ( 1359 ) on Tuesday December 18, 2001 @10:06AM (#2719394)
      Can somebody tell me what these features are, compared to what you'd get with sendmail/qmail / some-random-pop/imap-client ?

      Well, for example, if I want to schedule a meeting, I can invite all the people I want via Outlook/Exchange, and it will check their calendars to see if they're free, and if they are, send them a message that when it is opened will automatically fill in their calendars for them, if they say they do want to come. That's just a simple example. The reason all these macro virii can be written at all is that Outlook/Exchange isn't really an email solution per se: it's intended to be a platform for building groupware / workflow / directory applications on, so it's all very scriptable. Shared folders, contacts, task lists and diaries are wonderfully useful in an office where people move around a lot and can be hard to get hold of in person. And all this ties into project management software (MS Project) for really serious tracking.

      Email's the easy bit, and you can't compete with sendmail+popper+imapd if that's all you need, because they're free and easy to use. Exchange, like Lotus Notes, is sold on value-add. Just think of Notes as document management with messaging functionality, and Exchange as messaging with document management functionality.

  • Here it comes.. (Score:4, Informative)

    by ChadAmberg ( 460099 ) on Tuesday December 18, 2001 @09:35AM (#2719281) Homepage
    Sheesh... If all of you weren't so damn scared of Lotus Notes. Runs on Linux, S/390, Solaris, NT, ASS/400 (yes, the extra S is there on purpose), and others I'm sure I'm forgetting.

    It may be a bit different from what you're used to, but it supports, IMAP, POP3, SMTP, and HTTP(S) methods to access your mail easily..

    • Re:Here it comes.. (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Cesaro ( 78578 )
      It is also #1 in the user interface hall of shame [iarchitect.com], is horrendous on server and space requirement and from everyone I talked to who runs one, it goes down more than a prostitute with an inner ear problem.
      • OK, the UI for 4.x was pretty awful. 5 is a lot better - although there are some odd things in there. If it confuses you because you're only used to Outlook, well, too bad.

        We use Notes throughout for a lot more than just mail/calendar and we don't get many problems at all. As well as support for all that stuff mentioned above, there's also stuff like S/MIME - with the ability to use the NAB as an LDAP server for picking up public keys etc.

        Good administrators can keep it running flawlessly (ours don't do that badly either). We've never had an e-mail virus problem - if you install/configure MAPI to use Notes, then yes, that could be a problem, but why on earth would anyone want to do that?

      • Re:Here it comes.. (Score:2, Interesting)

        by reaper20 ( 23396 )
        Isn't it true that you can run a Notes/Domino backend but keep Outlook as the client?

        Also, isn't Notes Rnext or whatever coming soon?

    • Re:Here it comes.. (Score:3, Interesting)

      by uslinux.net ( 152591 )
      Runs on Linux, S/390, Solaris, NT...


      Does it? Has IBM started supporting a Linux Notes client in the last 9 months? Domino is supported (though 9 months ago, most, but not all features we there). Notes is the client, Domino is the server.



      As an aside: I did an evaluation a year ago of Domino 5, Exchange 2000, HP Openmail, Sendmail, iPlanet, and Communigate Pro. Basically, Communigate was a great Sendmail replacement because it had a good interface, came with IMAP, POP, SSL support, etc. But, if users wanted group calendaring and all that jazz, you needed Domino, Exchange, or Openmail. I liked Openmail best, but some HP reps told me in January 2000 at LinuxWorld in NYC that Openmail 6 was the last release.



      Sigh. I really wish HP would OpenSource Openmail (hey, it's already got a great open source name). HP can strip out all the proprietary code (fine with me), and leave the OpenSource community to add the functionality back in. Maybe development would continue, maybe not. In any case, there would at leats be a *chance* it would continue.



      Hey, maybe someone can pick up openopenmail.org :-)

  • What Exchangish can OpenMail do that Stalker's CommuniGate Pro can't?

  • Sylpheed (Score:2, Offtopic)

    by Krimsen ( 26685 )
    Don't forget there's another reader [oreillynet.com] available that hopes to be a replacement for Outlook also.

  • Know better than what? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by gazbo ( 517111 ) on Tuesday December 18, 2001 @09:45AM (#2719330)
    despite that people should know better.
    ...than to link to a story about an html rendering vulnerability that has been fixed?

    Actually, that link does serve some purpose - the entire tone of the article is very amusing given that the vulnerability was fixed 2 days later, and is worth re-reading with that in mind to see the sort of crap and guesswork people will write.
    • the vulnerability was fixed 2 days later,

      Which is uniquie because it's stunningly responsive for Microsoft.

      Consider IE's recent broken-MIME-handling vulnerability, in which you could get an EXE file silently run by shipping it from your webserver with a mime type like audio/x-midi; it's been in IE for at least six years and it took Microsoft three months from the initial public outcry to the fix.


  • Bill G.: Bring out yer dead!



    HP:'Ere you go...



    Open Mail:I'm not dead yet



    HP:What do yer mean, yer ready to go at any time!



    Open Mail: I'm getting better!



    Bill G.: I can't take thi$, it'$ not GUI reliant nor i$ it a real threat to my monopoly!



    Open Mail: I feel happy! I feel fine!



    [THUD]



    HP: Thanks a lot!



    Users: Do you see them oppressin' me?



    (wink wink nudge nudge know what I mean)

  • "...OpenMail is the *only* e-mail platform out there, besides Exchange that will support a whole slew of Microsoft Outlook features..."



    Please let me plug two products for a moment. The first is MailOne (descended from DEC's MailWORKS). Except for the Calendar/Groupware functions, it also supports Exchange/Outlook clients (including address book) as well as POP and IMAP (plus a command line and Motif client). Runs on Linux, AIX and Tru64.



    The second is Direct21, an email migration tool. If you are trying to get off of OpenMail (or on, I think) this tool will do that quickly and easily.



    Both can be found through the website [openone.com].

    • >Except for the Calendar/Groupware functions

      And therein lies the rub - and this goes for all the others above who are plugging imap as the solution.

      The users say they /need/ the shared calendar. They have nokia 9110's / wince devices etc and they want it all to synch with outlook. So you can argue with them until you are blue in the face that they won't all use the calendar and this and that but in the end it only takes a few dedicated users on a user group plus one manager to crack and hey ho you need to be evaluating notes and the insight/trade server from bynari otherwise you'll have exchange by the end of the month :-)

    • Except for the Calendar/Groupware functions...
      Right, well, that's just it. The calendar/groupware functions are really what we're talking about. I put together a free mail server using Sendmail, OpenLDAP, Cyrus POP3/IMAP, IMP webmail, and I contributed to a web-based user management interface for Cyrus/OpenLDAP called Websieve, available on SourceForge.

      The system as a whole does everything Exchange does, including user-controlled server-side mail filtering (Does Exchange do that?), everything except calendar/groupware.

      Right now I'm hoping I can get some open-source groupware program to fill the gap, but I haven't been able to find anything yet that will do iCal and integrate with my users' Palm devices.

  • Hee. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by M-2 ( 41459 ) on Tuesday December 18, 2001 @10:30AM (#2719486) Homepage
    I work for a Very Large Organization that uses Openmail in parts of itself, and Exchange in others. When HP announced they were knifing Openmail, this gave some people the excuse to start planning the switchover.

    So, now it's not being knifed. I made sure to get this information to my boss, who is going to pass it on to other people today, to read, review, and spit bile over, because now the reason for their pet project going through is negated. And it means we're not going over to Exchange, which is, pretty much, a good thing overall, even if having two different email systems between the parts of the corporation that merged together is a Really Not Very Good Thing.

    I love the sound of an entire Fortune 10 corporation's IT management and planning group having a collective stroke, especially when I gave the information that causes the stroke. It really makes my mornings worth it some days.
  • Personally I don't want to muck up my email with a bunch of unrelated things, like calendars. It probably appeals to the PHB sort, but I can't the use in this stuff. I like my email the good old way, plain text.

  • Why companies use Exchange and nothing else (Score:5, Insightful)

    by TBone ( 5692 ) on Tuesday December 18, 2001 @11:15AM (#2719701) Homepage
    One word: Calendaring.

    As much crap as LookOut/Exchange does, there is no other piece of software that seamlessly integrates the groupware automated scheduling functionality that Exchange does. From a New Event window, I can create the event, add users from the Exchange domain, verify their schedules, move the event, confirm it, have a mail sent that shows up to each person with the information and 3 buttons (Accept, Decline, and Accept Conditionally). After I send the Email, I can then track who has opened the Email, who has replied, who is coming, and who isn't.

    Evolution is a nice client, but it's a client. All of that work is on the serverside.

    Notes is OK, but I need a bigger machien to run it on than I run my data warehouses on. And when it crashes (when, not if), it's gonna be seriously borked.

    This is why companies use Exchange/LookOut. Not because it's a great mail client, but because it integrates all of the possible messageing functions a business needs, and talks to additional software like Project to plot out Project Management information.

    OpenMail is the only other server-side enterprise messaging system out there that fulfills these needs. It's a decent program, it's not MS, it's significantly cheaper (if for no other reason then you only need 10% of the servers to run it on), and it runs on a more stable OS.

    • Novell Groupwise had all this well before Outlook, and did it better in my opinion (I was using it in 1995, when Outlook was struggling with this functionality).

      It's all but dead now, though.

      Gollo.
    • Actually, the calendar client in Outlook/Exchange is a 90% client side function. The *ONLY* serverside component is the posting of your 'Free/Busy' data to a public folder that is then replicated to other Exchange servers...

      All other calendar services are client based, relying on a pre-determined message format that the client understands...

      The security model for Exchange extends down to the FOLDER LEVEL only. There is no item level security, so if you give someone read access to your calendar, then there is NOTHING stopping people from reading any item in that folder... Because the ITEM security is ALSO a client function...(don't trust that 'private' flag! Both Outlook98 Beta2 and Outlook 2000 (pre-SR1) had bugs that IGNORED that flag and allowed you to PRINT or VIEW the 'private items'..)

      Microsoft has done what Microsoft does best: CLIENT SOFTWARE. The calendaring system in Exchange is really an outlook-calendaring client with a tiny bit of server-side hooks for Free/Busy data.

      In a nut-shell, Exchange is Microsoft Mail on steroids, and that's about it.
  • I think it is fair to mention Caldera's Volution [caldera.com] Messaging Server, which is marketed as a Linux-based, low cost alternative to Exchange. What is interesting is that a large part of this product is actually open source: Postfix, Cyrus-IMAP, OpenLDAP, OpenSSL, HORDE/IMP. Caldera's contribution is arguably valuable: they tied the whole mess together, added a user-friendly interface (integration and user friendliness is something open source projects are often horrible at) and added Outlook-compatible calendaring. Still, what is notable is that the open source world is already a long way there. All it needs is packaging and calendaring. Make it work out of the box without the fuss, and you got an Exchange-killer.
  • It's a great product; it's hugely scalable and unbelievably fast. It comes out with monthly to quarterly builds, has a free 50 user key for Linux until 2005. Keys and the RPMs are openly available via ftp.

    The Linux version is well supported and comes as an RPM (that works). The message store is fast as hell; the web client is excellent and comes in a few flavors.

    The sad thing about Slashdot and what keeps me from posting here is that this is old news. Samsung picked up OpenMail months ago. Why I don't bother to post - well, those of us who don't know the editors know why I don't post.

    linuxkey@openmail.com is the email address to obtain Linux keys, there is a useful but slightly dated FAQ about installing HPOM here, http://www.hpc-consulting.com/OM-QS-Configuration- Guide-rev1-1.htm , and buried in this ftp (ftp.itrc.hp.com) somewhere are the tarred RPMs.

    The licensing is kind of freakish and annoying, Exchange administrators enjoy being able to steal seats, but they also enjoy a broken product. I have investigated Exchange 2000, we flat out denied the product as unscalable and useless, and are very glad we used OpenMail.

    Death to Carly Fiorina - the crappy CEO of HP (and the organizer of the Lucent spin off from AT&T a COMPLETE failure). She is a bane to HP. She tried to kill OpenMail, fricking SAMSUNG picked it up. Death to Carly. Walter B. Hewlett, David Woodley Packard, Susan Packard Orr and the Previous CEO of HP, Lewis E Platt, ALL HATE YOU CARLY. YOU ARE WRONG AND THE PACKARD FAMILY IS RIGHT. The merger with Compaq is a bastardization. She actually destroyed the HP RPN calculator division because it wasn't growing fast enough! The division makes money - but doesn't grow fast enough. She has no 30 year vision, she is a horrible CEO, and while Steve Jobs of Apple takes a $1 a year salary (and that's what he deserves for not porting OS X to x86), she took 3 Million on bonus this year even though the STOCK TANKED.

    I love OpenMail; I love RPN calculators, and long live the real HP (and Agilent). Death to Carly. (Hey, Carly, I dumped my HP stock when I saw you messing around, and I saved myself a lot of money by doing so.)

    PS - HewPaq will fail. They *think* they will compete with IBM, hah. Ha. ha. IBM still makes new technology, not fires whole divisions of engineers. And Carly, learn from your FAILED Price Waterhouse endeavor. You suck as a CEO. You are a bad person.

    Long live OpenMail! :)

  • Not compatibility (Score:3, Informative)

    by ahde ( 95143 ) on Tuesday December 18, 2001 @03:29PM (#2721664) Homepage
    This is great news considering OpenMail was the only serious Unix-based competitor to Microsoft Exchange.


    there are lots of Unix-based competitors to Microsoft Exchange. What about sendmail? There are not a lot of Exchange clones with code licensed from Microsoft in them that will behave exactly the same for Outlook clients. Even then there is now Evolution from Ximian. Volution from Caldera, Insight from Bynari, and various web based solutions.

    How about an alphabet soup of open standards that does the job better, easier, more efficiently: POP, IMAP, SMTP, HTTP, SSL, CGI, FTP, LDAP, ABCDEFG, ETC?

    Its not called competition if you're selling the same product.

    • there are lots of Unix-based competitors to Microsoft Exchange.

      What about sendmail?
      Bad example. Sendmail is one of the most non Unix pieces of software ever, in terms of modular and secure design. More to the point, its at best clone on the Exchange Internet Mail Connector. An MTA != A groupware app.

      There are not a lot of Exchange clones with code licensed from Microsoft in them that will behave exactly the same for Outlook clients.

      Not, but there are clones which will behave exactly (as in, equivalent functionality and no staff retraining) the same for Outlook clients.

      Evolution from Ximian.
      Yes indeed. Exchange connectors for Exchange5.5 and 2000 will be avaliable at the start of next year. They do all the X400 based stuff Outlook and Exchange do, including group calendaring, unsending messages, etc.

      Volution from Caldera
      I thought this was a system management tool and a repackaging of postfix, an imap server, and a couple of other bits and pieces. Again, an MTA and MDA are not groupware. Though it it has OpenLDAP and more importantly some way of doing the calendaring stuff it would be close. Corect me if this is the case.

      Insight from Bynari
      Indeed. Insight also does all the Exhcange - > Outlook specific stuff. The client is also free as in beer, so download it and give it a try. it does seem a little clunky tho, especially when compared to evolution.

      Steltor
      You didn't mention Steltor [steltor.com] that seems to be the best of the Exchange comaptible groupware servers. I have yet to implement it myself but from what I understand its much better maintained and works better with existing Unix services than the others.
  • ...OpenMail is the *only* e-mail platform out there, besides Exchange that will support a whole slew of Microsoft Outlook features.

    That is not true (any more). The Calendar product in OpenMail is a version of the Steltor [steltor.com] CorporateTime calendar. The Steltor Calendar has an Outlook 'service provider' that allows Outlook to talk to their calendar server. Combine that with SMTP/IMAP4/LDAP, and you've got a close competitor to Exchange..

    Take a look at Bynari's [bynari.com] Insight product... for another 'possbility'.. Calendar-server less calender service!

    Oh, one thing about OpenMail.. it IS standards based, as long as you don't mind running an X.400 mail system with an SMTP gateway...

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