Date: 13 Nov 2001 10:14:37 +0000 From: Wayne Pascoe <freebsd@molemanarmy.com> To: setantae <setantae@submonkey.net> Cc: questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: slightly OT: Unix MTA vs Exchange Message-ID: <86r8r3dlki.fsf@pan.ehsrealtime.com> In-Reply-To: <20011113095014.GA86200@rhadamanth> References: <20011112102721.H71050-100000@cactus.fi.uba.ar> <86bsi77fon.fsf@pan.home.penguinpowered.org.uk> <20011113095014.GA86200@rhadamanth>
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setantae <setantae@submonkey.net> writes:
> > If anyone has any information to contradict this, I'd be interested to
> > hear it. I'd love to be able to punt a decent alternative to Exchange.
>
> Despite not being able to find it, I am _sure_ that I say a posting on
> the exim-users list sometime in the past that suggested that all of that
> functionality was implemented client-side in Outlook, and that an Exchange
> server was actually surplus to requirements.
That's mostly accurate. The way meetings are generated in Outlook, is
that an e-mail is generated with a specific format. Upon receipt,
other outlook clients know that this is a meeting request and take
actions.
This part is doable with any MTA on the backend.
When things get tricky is shared calendars. When you have a holiday
calendar for the entire department, that is maintained on the central
server. Each client that has permissions can change items in this
calendar and all other clients see these changes. But wait, there's
more :) There is also an outlook web interface to this that allows non
windows or mac users (ie. me) to be able to see and book items in
shared calendars.
This cannot be provided by a generic MTA :)
Both of these functions are available through different applications
on FreeBSD, but the trick is the integration. Because many large
company's have become dependant on being able to do all of this in one
place, we really need a solution that will provide this. But because
Microsoft controls the desktop, and their client software doesn't
easily accept plugins, you basically have to reverse engineer and
re-implement the exchange protocol.
I looked at doing this a few months back, but its an enormous task and
I'm far too stupid.
--
- Wayne Pascoe
| 'tis far easier to get forgiveness than
freebsd@molemanarmy.com | it is to get permission - probably someone
http://www.molemanarmy.com | famous, but more often, my Dad.
|
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