Linux groupware

[DaturaX]

I moonlight as a freelance technical consultant while working a daytime job. I usually work on small business providing linux firewall and samba solutions.

I want to start offering SAMBA for domain controllers seeing that SAMBA can be a NT domain controller. I have used samba in the past and found that it is very reliable and efficient, with uptime measured in months at the least. I want to get off of windows on the server, not because of cost, but because of security issues and general reliablity. The only remaining issue is groupware.

I have been considering Suse OpenExchange, it's open source cousin, Open-Xchange, OpenGroupware.org, Kerio Mail Server, and Exchange4Linux.

I have users that will never want to get rid of outlook so outlook compatability is essential. Right now I'm leaning towards Kerio Mail Server because Kerio products have been good in the past for me and it's cheap, it's around $USD 500 for 20 users. Now some may say that opengroupware.org and exchange4linux are free, but they are not because the outlook connectors on them cost money, too. Suse exchange is prohibitively expensive.

I need opinions on this. It has to be groupware. If you have never used exchange, you may never understand: it gives a boss incredible control over thier company, to send appointments, to assign tasks, to view calendars, etc. You're not going to take this away from a boss without offering him something very, very similar. I didn't understand exchange for a long time because I never looked at it as an end user, only as an administrator. I would like a groupware server that has a web interface, outlook, and some other windows clients so i can offer an open source alternative to outlook, the same way openoffice.org is an alternative to MS office.

Forget to mention about the cost, taking Microsoft SBS as the price point i want to be competitive in.

 

[ranstlin]

I'm also interested in hearing what you guys have to say about this. I've also considered doing some of these settings as well and I want to hear your suggestions for the software.

 

[jillande]

i'm looking through some of these options as well. i installed opengroupware.org on thursday and found it to be less than what i was hoping for. i haven't configured it all the way yet so maybe there are some features that will wow me, but as is, the trial site of open-xchange looks much more user-friendly. i haven't tried connecting 3rd party clients to it yet, however. that will be the most important part. the installation process was quick at least.

i want to find something that will make novell groupwise users happy, supports secure connections, and can use 3rd party clients for e-mail (really want to use the current imap boxes we have up) and calendar, can easily import from groupwise calendar and oracle calendar (running both right now), ... the list seems impossible to satisfy with what is available open source. heh.

 

[cjcox]

How about..... Groupwise? Novell is dedicated to supporting Groupwise under Linux. Just an option.

With regards to Exchange... especially if Outlook (aka LookOut) HAS TO be used... I don't think you'll be satisfied with anything that is currently available. The all have limitations, bugs and quirks and that's WITHOUT considering drop-in replacement ease.