Yet Another Exchange Killer? 333
jmertic writes "SuSE Linux now has the latest Exchange killer, but this time for Exchange Server. Openexchange Server is designed to be a drop in replacement for Exchange 5.5 users who don't want to pay the MS tax of going to Exchange 2000. They say it will be available mid November."
Will It Work As A Drop-in For 5.0? (Score:2, Interesting)
Source code license? (Score:5, Interesting)
yo (Score:1, Interesting)
a) 100% as difficult to rewrite, but transparent to the users OR
b) defend their licensing in court.
Anyway, this is a very weird cycle. I'd be enlightened if some other enightened minds could suggest some alternative cycles. Maybe there arent any.
-skimpIzu!
Re:Interesting use of "Open" (Score:1, Interesting)
Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)
What's the point? (Score:3, Interesting)
It's not even cheap. I know I can get good pricing from Microsoft due the area in which I work (Healthcare), but this is considerably more expensive, probably twice the cost for just the base server application.
I think I'll give it a miss
Re:MS Tax? (Score:2, Interesting)
*I can't say it's entirely perfect because when I do a flowchart (graphics in word) he can't see it in editing mode, but he can in Print Preview and he can print it. Not a big deal since I do all of that and he doesn't ever use the feature, but I guess it could be a problem elsewhere.
Good, now where can I get the source.. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Wait a minute. (Score:5, Interesting)
You are comparing, I think, a discounted web price for an Exchange upgrade with a list price for Suse. Suse will also discount, everybody does. Also, others have posted that Suse is charging per connected user, rather than the total number of users who ever connect (if I understand the other posts.) This will make a difference. Further, if you need to upgrade other software (MS OS, Office) and the only thing holding you up from going to Linux / OpenOffice is Exchange, then Suse's OpenExchange prices might not have to be far below the MS price.
However, if Suse really undercuts pricing, MS could always increase its discounts until SuSe's commercial offering goes away. This is a big advantage of true open source -- it can't be priced out of the market.
Re:Source code license? (Score:5, Interesting)
Because of Yast I don't support Suse and never will.
I know I be modded as Troll for this, but I know many other people feel the same way I do. I mean for a company that claims to be so into opensource why have this "gotcha" built into their distro? Could you imagine if Redhat had done the same thing with RPM? Or Debian had did this with Apt?
Suse did invent the tool so they do get to pick the license, but what would happen if the 99% of software written by others which they are repackaging all did the same thing?
I smell a lawsuit!! (Score:5, Interesting)
Nah... just my imagination running away with me again.
Exchange Killer?? (Score:3, Interesting)
so why would I pay a metric shitload of cash when I can have basically the same (without the migration of an existing exchange server) for free?
hey......OO should come up with a group ware (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:yo (Score:3, Interesting)
You could either look at it as the consumerisation (is that a word?) of software, which occurs with pretty much any type of electronic product you could name (digital watches, cd players, VCR's), where the price of the product starts high and then drops when people figure out how to mass produce it cheaply.
Unfortunately, the main reason as to why the price starts out high - that the components are difficult to make in large numbers and become cheaper as time goes by and demand increases - doesn't apply to software because once you've made the first copy, you can mass produce it simply by putting it on the internet or on CD.
And because it is so easy to mass produce, the large companies have to artificially make it more difficult to mass produce, which is why everyone on Slashdot get's so pissed off with them.
The only way this cycle will break is if someone figures out a business model where
a) The programmers write the software and still get paid, and
b) No artificial constraints on what can be done with the software are applied.
Personally, I think that as long as big companies think that they can make a product once and sell it millions of times, (remind you of Douglas Adams' Mostly Harmless?) they are going to keep fighting this losing battle.
The solution, as companies like AOL have figured out, is that the software is a means-to-an-end. They don't try to sell you their software, they sell you their web service. Do most city database companies try and sell a generic e-commerce application, or are they selling the service to customise it to the needs of the client?
And god help the recording industry
Consumer software and consumer pre-recorded music are dead end industries, which is why they are fighting using every dirty trick in the book to try and stay alive at the moment.
Well, that's my view on things anyway
Re:Wow (Score:1, Interesting)
Open does not Open Source make.
Micro does not Microscopic make (see M$ exe's for demo)
As I've been noticing a lot of recently, many of the new 'Open' products are just that, products with a name made to fool the 'casual' open sourcer into thinking they're getting something that's not proprietary, like M$'s stuff.
Re:Prediction: It will be available in november.. (Score:1, Interesting)
If it won't be Open Source, all I have to say is OpenMail, or Samsung Contact as it is referred to now.
Re:Obvioulsy you've never used Exchange (Score:3, Interesting)
Also all these comments about lisa and melissa and code red etc have me scratching my head as well, I mean hasn't anybody heard of virus scanners? I've got Norton Corporate Edition with the Exchange/Outlook plugin and ain't NOTHING getting past it! Shit, you can even configure it to autoupdate itself and push the updates out to the clients when they log in!
Re:hey......OO should come up with a group ware (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Not. (Score:3, Interesting)
There's no reason the essential Exchange functionality couldn't be duplicated. Some of the Calendar info is already available in that icalendar format, and the rest could be encapsulated in POP/IMAP. Add some server enhancvements and maybe an Outlook plugin, and you could be pretty close.
And of course, you could distribute the Outlook plugin to the whole enterprise just by sending one attachment to the VP of Marketing.
Re:Interesting use of "Open" (Score:3, Interesting)
Since they've got all that other stuff on there, they should throw in IMP as well.
I wonder if the spam filter is SpamAssassin?
Re:MS Tax? (Score:2, Interesting)
However, trying to extrapolate this out to Microsoft Exchange is incredibly weak. Exchange is not a perfect product, however it is very highly regarded; It offers a superb feature set for many organizations. Exchange is an entirely optional product, as is upgrading, and there is not "Tax like" element of it.
Re:Bynari comparison, please? (Score:2, Interesting)
Wrt Outlook robust-ness, it's recommended to upgrade your Outlook to the latest 'service pack' to avoid problems there.
Also, the configuration changes to Outlook are not very straight-forward to do (unless familiar with it).
Server-side Exchange features such as document flow (which is hardly ever used) are missing.
All the traditional features such as shared folders, meeting requests, appointments, free/buzy , synchronisation with PDA, and such are there...
Check out there website at www.bynari.net [bynari.net] or download a demo ISO image [www.life.be]
Re:hey......OO should come up with a group ware (Score:2, Interesting)
Looks like they're on their way