# replacing msexchange

## thomasjb

i'm presented (by the owner of our company - approx. 70 people in 6 office locations) with the opportunity to work out a solution to replace our msexchange server with a linux based alternative.

i've looked at various commercial solutions, like "suse linux openexchange server", "communigate pro", "samsung contact", etc., but would really like to find an opensource/gpl alternative.

i've looked at "opengroupware", "egroupware", "kolab/kroupware", etc., all quite interesting alternatives.

anyone of you guys ever tried a similar undertaking and in a position to share some experiences?

some infos on our firm's specific requirements (as per the big boss).

1) an environment where we can have the benefits of Exchange (shared calendars, shared folders) with the freedom to have Windows, Linux or Unix/Apple clients.

2. ability to see and edit each other's calendars (important)

3. ability to share folders for the contact list and other marketing tools (essential but there may be other ways to do this by putting the shared resources into a database or contact manager software other than Outlook or even going to a web based service)

4. as a mail back up (nice to have but not essential)

5. ability to set up FTP protocols to send files between offices

6. a decentralized set up with 6 servers operating independently [in 6 different geographical locations] and linked via the ISP/internet to synchronize shared folders etc.

i'd somehow like to avoid a webbased solution (like egroupware) if at all possible.

however, as i see it, the solution could very well be a collection of various specialized applications and does not at all have to be provided by one single application.

i'd really appreciate any experiences you could share, comments, hints, pointers ...

thanks!

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## hifi

try 

http://www.opengroupware.org

I've set this up to my shame I didn't used gentoo, because it hat do be quickly done. So I fell back to debian. But It is a matter of time, that i will set this box up with gentoo

Some thinks of course must be done with other tools. opengroupware is mainly for the calendar thing.

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## thomasjb

sorry to keep trying ... but i could really use any help i can get on this one. Thanks!

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## cuban

I've looked around myself. There aren't really any good solutions. Everything is webbased and no where near the usability of exchange...

I look to Novell to solve this problem.

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## thomasjb

cuban,

what's novell got in the pipeline?

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## cuban

Nothing yet (unless groupwise runs on Linux, which I don't think it does), but since they bought SuSE and Ximian it won't be long before something does come out. 

It, obviously, would not be GPL and would be a commerical product.

Daniel

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## waverider202

everything you ask for can be done except for shared calendars.  SuSE has a commercial product that can do it.  It uses Skyrix.  Then there's opengroupware.  Opengroupware is the opensource version of Skyrix.  My company had issues with both SuSE and Opengroupware, but your milage may vary.  Also, to get calendaring to work with either of the 3 (SuSE/Skyrix/Opengroupware) you need a connector for Outlook.  That connector is not free, its $60/head.

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## thomasjb

thanks a lot for your comments, waverider202.

were the issues you had stability related our usability related? what application did your company end up using, if you don't mind me asking?

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## neilhwatson

An Exchange killer would be nice.  Exchange and Outlook are often frustrating.  It seems to me that the current crop of groupware projects are missing a few features:

1.  Calendar sharing.

2.  PDA syncing for contacts and calendars.

3.  An offline sync for travelling users.

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## waverider202

For e-mail, we developed a a few shell scripts to do a full configure and install of a few rpm's to get a exchange replacement minus calendaring.  We have an affiliate company that used HP Opentime, so we started using that jointly, but that requires HP software to view their calendar.  The issues we ran into with Skyrix were stability issues.  With opengroupware, I could never get it to install the same twice.  For us, just incase the server dies, we need a way to quickly restore or reinstall, and opengroupware did not seem feasable for that.

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