small businesss e-mail/calendar solution

[Handruin]

I'm working with a friend to setup a solution for e-mail in his new business. Having a shared calendar/appointment and contact lists is something he desires.

Right now he investigated a service which provides microsoft exchange as a solution to use with outlook. I know many here dislike outlook as an e-mail solution, so I'm curious if you know of an integrated solid solution for sharing contacts, calenders, and the ability to manage appointments.

Right now I'm able to have outlook 2003 setup with my IMAP server for send/receive e-mails. We also have web based e-mail support and it seems as though I can send appointment requests to another person without having exchange.

A few problems that persist are the ability for me to see his calender if I want to book an appointment. There is also no shared contacts list. Both of those would be solved with an exchange setup, but is there another way to do this?

 

[Mercutio]

There are a variety of solutions to these problems on sourceforge.net and Freshmeat.net.

I haven't used any in the last three years; I'm not sure my experience would have any validity at this point.

In the commercial realm, SuSE has an Exchange replacement that I've heard good things about, and Samsung bought what was formerly HP OpenMail, which was a drop-in replacement for Exchange - up to and including support for Exchange Calendar and Scheduling in Outlook.

 

[Handruin]

While I was doing some browsing on the topic, I did find the SuSE Linux OpenExchange that you mentioned and it looks good. I tried the online demo and it has decent web support. However, I can't find a price for it on SuSE's website.

I'll do some searching on sourceforge & Freshmeat.net to see if anything turns up.

 

[time]

Unless they've changed the pricing recently, it ain't cheap. Last time I looked, GroupWise was much cheaper.

Why not just use Mozilla Sunbird and subscribe to a remote calendar?

Eg: http://home.jesus.ox.ac.uk/it/pubns/TN074.pdf (79kB PDF)

OSDir[/url]]Although Sunbird is unable to communicate with a Microsoft Exchange server for calendar sharing, it does offer an interesting open alternative with its use of the webDAV server. The webDAV server allows users “to collaboratively edit and manage files on remote web servers.” The calendar is hosted on the webDAV server and is simply accessed remotely with the use of Sunbird as a client. Since webDAV is able to be run from an Apache web server with the use of the module mod_dav, it allows for a fair degree of flexibility for work groups. Users will be able to use existing Apache web servers to host their calendars and will not need additional hardware, additionally they will be able to access it from anywhere that is connected to the Internet. It will certainly be interesting to see how this feature develops in future builds of Sunbird, as it could become a pure open alternative to an Exchange server.

Alternatively, if you're feeling adventurous, you could try inScribe and its separate Groupware Server. I still can't make up my mind on whether this is shaping up to be another Pegasus or a dead end.

Finally, if you must throw money at Groupware, why not try something that at least sounds like a reasonable design? OfficeTalk claims to solve some of my pet Outlook/Exchange peeves.