Opinions on Exchange options

Brian Chase networkr0 at cfl.rr.com
Tue Apr 13 18:00:34 UTC 2004


This is a classic question.  I've been scouring all of my options and 
have heard of most mentioned in this thread.  If I were in this position, 
I'd lean toward SUSE OpenExchange Server as a provider for this, as 
you'll soon see Novell's Edirectory integrated, but there's no open 
source (free) versions for this comprehensive functionality I've seen 
that is easy to set up.  Most folks considering Linux as an alternative 
are trying to save money, that means they can't take a year to learn 
LDAP/Sendmail/IMAP, etc.  A web based interface to set all this up is 
long overdue, and Webmin doen't cut it for groupware administration or 
OpenGroupware.org or similar current open source offerings.

I'm waiting until a Groupware Server is built into the distribution for a 
future release of a free Linux offering.  I'm predicting that some Linux 
distribution will offer a groupware server, that is open source and free 
of per-client licensing arrangements, will hit the mirrors within about 
two years.  I'm not holding my breath, but we really need this to propel 
Linux into SME's, where Microsoft has total dominance.

redhat wrote:

> First - forgive the length of this post...I am going to throw this out
> there for whomever wants to respond.  I have an Exchange 5.5 server
> which is my PDC (primary authentication and email - internal only)
> running on server 2000.  Last year it crashed because it mysteriously
> forgot that it was the PDC and I had to rebuild it from scratch.  Now, I
> am having serious issues with Exchange mail and am getting tired of it. 
> I am required to offer calendaring, shared contacts, yadda, yadda,
> yadda.  I have looked at SuSE's offering and have also looked into a
> product called bynari.  Both seem to offer the right stuff - at a hefty
> price - comparable to M$.  I don't mind the price but I want to be sure
> that in another year I am not back in the same position with problem on
> a different platform.  I don't have anyone on staff that can set up
> Sendmail and I don't have the time to learn it.  I need something that
> is intuitive enough to set up and administer.  If you are familiar with
> either of these products I would appreciate pros and cons.  If you have
> a different product that does not require 3 brains to setup and
> administer I would appreciate that as well.
> thanks,
> DF
> 
> 





More information about the fedora-list mailing list