[mdlug] Something to exchange Exchange

[Robert Adkins]

Michael S. Mikowski wrote:
> Hi Rob:
>
> I have researched Scalix for my company, spoke with their 
> reps, and recommended them to my brother who is using 
> them to support thousands of users.  Sometimes, the 
> people were hard to get a hold of, but other than that, 
> my experience has been mostly positive.
>
> Infoworld gave them a glowing review (with Zimbra coming 
> in a close second).  Technologically, their product is 
> quite compelling.  I and about 4 other users played with 
> calendaring and email.  Everything worked like it should.  
> Installation was painless on RHES4.  
>
> The web client was a little bit slow to start (5-10s), but 
> also very responsive and compelling once loaded.  On a 
> local network, its easy to forget you are not using 
> outlook.  And they support Outlook clients too.  Its as 
> close to a drop-in Exchange replacement as you can hope 
> to get.
>   
    Cool, thanks for the information.

> However, if you are attempting to influence your company 
> to move from Exchange -- and you are not the IT guy -- 
> recognize that the major impediments are probably not 
> technological, but instead are political.
>   
    Small company. I am the IT Department.

    I don't allow any Microsoft Servers on the premises. I regularly 
turn away IT Salespeople who keep trying to push MS Products, who simply 
cannot believe that Linux is capable of doing "anything" worthwhile. 
(Which is beyond silly, considering the day and age we live in with the 
much higher profile that Linux has, compared to 10 years ago.)

    Anyway, the problem is the disinterest in actual groupware or 
looking at or using something to track things in a meaningful fashion, 
like my experiment with 'dotproject' turning out to be a failure, even 
though it would work nicely for our organization. (Nobody wants to put 
in the time to look at or consider it.)

    We don't use Exchange, which really is a point of failure and loss 
for Microsoft, if they just weren't so damned platform dependent. 
(That's just snark by the way...)
> Our company's infrastructure and personell are so firmly 
> wedged into Exchange, they aren't going anywhere.  I 
> scared a /lot/ of people by just install the damn thing 
> on the box under my desk.  The CTO only grudgingly agreed 
> to allow me to test (Exchange was choking on our mail 
> volume at the time), and then decisions makers refused to 
> even /look/ at the the thing.  AFAIK, they never even 
> considered anything but Exchange.
>   
    The problem here is a distinct disinterest in change, any kind of 
change. Especially if that entails learning or beginning to use 
something new.
> Since then, they threw a lot of money, hardware, time, MS 
> licenses at the problem, and the email works much better 
> now.  It just goes to show -- a /lot/ of people bet their 
> career on installing and managing Exchange (see Ford 
> Motor Company c1999)
>
> So be forwarned.  If I were to do it all over again, I'd 
> spend a lot more time on people-strategy.  Good luck!  
> And, you may want to look at Zimbra too.
>   
    I'll take a gander at Zimbra, thanks for the input.

    -Rob