Outlook 2003 must be the thing in the US if most of the 100+ mailbox companies you're talking to are using it.
Here in Australia I can assure you that its not the case. My company has 450 mailboxes and 95% are outlook 2000. ONLY the very top management team uses 2003.
Zimbra really needs to do more for IT staff to get it in the door my General Manager is all over me about Zimbra at the moment as it's what I've converted him to, to the point he's done me the favor of booking an appointment for me to talk to a MS rep about exchange and OWA again.
I love Zimbra, I love the fact I could easily move the mail store to my SAN and it does every thing I want. Zimbra + some Firefox 2 addons is the bomb for me. Unfortunetly my management team hate the AJAX client they want Outlook and most of them are on 2000, not 2003.
Which bring me to my next question, atm I am using the open source version and it's been great in testing, can I simply buy 2003 outlook connectors for it without having to upgrade the server version?
There are a couple of niggles about the AJAX client but there are already known about and i believe will get fixed shortly.
I think one of the big issues all the open source / linux based solutions have is the OSS versions are great but as soon as you want the connector they charge stupidly to the point where we walk away can simply buy Exchange, no IT Manager has ever had to sell Exchange to management, they know it, they want it even if it's expensive, soon as I put another solution on the table even if it's only 80% the cost they say meh buy exchange.
Zimbra, Scalix etc etc all need to learn they are the new kids on the block and need to work very hard to get traction in the market and not price themselves out of the deal.
Also subscription licensing is plain stupid, we have an IT department for a reason if the company has a IT issue they are expected to fix it not go calling the vendor first time it fits the fan. We want a one off fee that gives us a right to use for as long as we want that version, with the option of paying an addional annual support fee.  |