[tbullock]

Well Peter it sounds you like you really did your homework. I envy your scripting ability!

When I moved our company to Zimbra it a very similar situation, with the workstations holding the mail files and in a few instances the mail files being on a file server. Only difference being that ALL of the mail clients were Outlook clients.

I really did a "tough love" number on my users though and you may want to discuss it with your management team there. Basically, all NEW employees are "forced" to use the web interface. I use it myself and love it, but by my using it I can easily do away with the frivolous complaints.

I also "forced" large portions of our departments onto the web interface. Basically, if you are not an "executive", you have no choice in the matter. Some key points to help promote such a drastic action are:

1. If you use the web interface, I will back up your mail. You won't lose it if your persoanl desktop happens to crash. If you continue using Outlook with it's rediculous .pst files......don't come crying to me.
2. If you want to access your e-mail from more than one computer or from remote locations, use the Web Interface not Outlook. If you insist on Outlook, you will have access to your e-mail from one machine only.


MOVING 5 Years of Crap from Client to Zimbra:

- don't do it. Once you get into peoples files, you will be blown away as to how much junk they are keeping in their bloated mail clients. It will take too much time per machine to sit there trying to figure out what is being moved and what is not.

-what I did was again "tough love". Basically I sabotoged the old mail client so it could no longer "receive" mail and told the user that if they needed to look at a message for historical reference, then open the old client and search away.

The administrative nightmare of your current situation is instantly resolved with a Zimbra implementation. However, by NOT using the Web interface, you are only using a portion of it's capabilities. Besides, we are talking about e-mail here, sending and receiving for business purposes....not having fancy mail clients with smiley faces and flying saucers buzzing around every time someone hits their "Send" button (IncrediMail...blah).

I think that implementing the web interface as a mandatory function of most users is definitely woth a shot. At the very least you may end up with a 50-50 split or maybe even better. That means that instantley you are reducing your workload/email client support substantially.

Right now I have about 70-30 split, with 70% using the webclient and 30% still on Outlook. It is fantastic from an administration standpoint and the complaints are dropping off fast. It is just a matter of "getting used to it", plus when users start discovering how wickedly cool "conversation threads" and "Tags" are they begin to prefer the web client.