BEST calendaring client to use with Zimbra?

[ddigioia]

Hi everyone,

Our company is currently using Zimbra 4.5.7 NE with these mail clients:

Microsoft Outlook 2002, 2003, 2007
Mozilla Thunderbird (Windows XP & Mac OS X Tiger)
Apple Mail.app (Tiger)
Microsoft Entourage (Tiger)

We've been very happy with Zimbra's performance as an IMAP and SMTP server. However, so far, our experience with Zimbra calendaring has not been quite as easy or as reliable as we'd hoped.

We'd like to get shared calendaring, invitations, etc. working reliably for everyone, while limiting our internal support costs to set it up, maintain it and educate our users.

We would consider mandating everyone switch to Thunderbird/Lightning IF the calendaring functionality/reliability is approaching 100%.

What have you had the best experience with? One of these clients with Zimbra calendaring? One of these clients with Zimbra connecting to Google calendar?

Are we better off waiting for Zimbra NE 5.0 ?

Thanks,
David

[mmorse]

With the Network Edition (said you had NE 4.5.7) there's Outlook & iSync connectors.
I haven't had trouble myself, but some people are reporting slight issues deleting events in thunderbird/lightning setups: /forums/administrators/11622-thunderbird-lightning.html

Connectors aside,
It would also be simple/easy from your end to train them in the excellent web-client. (Or is the web-client not an option for you? too much load etc?)
Then when ZDesktop goes GA, training concepts haven't changed.
You've then moved from supporting 6 or so clients to just one interface, plus your admins can see what's currently set/easily change settings for the users when they call in.
Let them know if they want their own thick-client tell them they're on their own to support it...ya I know, saying that works better in theory than actual practice, because you'll probably still have to give out how-to docs & you can't just ignore someone asking for help...