outlook compatibility with Open source edition

[sangamc]

I have sucessfully migrated my entire corporation to zimbra open source edition. 12 domains and about 60 users all happily emailing away except for the Corp attorney!

The jerk insists on using outlook and has enough power to sink my last 3 months worth of work by making our CEO pay for exchange 2010!!!

So zimbraites i need your help.

I can use IMAP to sync his mailbox with outlook. but still need a way to sync contacts and calendar items. Is there anyway to do this at all? i dont mind hacking slashing and/or forcing square peg into round hole to make it appear as if he is still on the old exchange server. As long as he is happy for the next few months, zimbra can take complete hold in our organization and he will not be able to convince anyone to switch back

Thanks

[RevDarkman]

There's always one! I have one here that insista on outlook and I got around it by..

Setting up Outlook via IMAP for email
We had already setup a Contacts Address Book for All staff and external staff (aboput 100 contacts) with email/mobile/addresses etc...
Export the contacts data - then make it a bit more Outlook friendly, then import into Outlook.
Any additional contacts are added as and when via vcard

Or you can just stand your ground and say NO!

[sangamc]

A few problems with this method. Since he connects to the zimbra server using his iphone and open source active sync. His calendar and contacts on his phone will never match what is in outlook unless they are all in sync.

A one time sync by exporting the calendar and contacts has bought me some time. For now he hasnt realised that they dont match. Eventually he will and this will give him more ammo in his campaign for exchange 2008.

Ive noticed in outlook there is an option for Internet calendars and also it appears i can add ldap address books. I thought this had potential since i use thunderbird and davmail (DavMail POP/IMAP/SMTP/Caldav/Carddav/LDAP Exchange Gateway) to pull ldap GAL from our old exchange, as well as sync my calendar from our old exchange, but i can not find a way to make zimbra calendar and contacts sharing to work.

Any more ideas out there or is a reverse migration inevitable/

[ewilen]

This might help: iCal4OL: Google Calendar Synchronization for Outlook - ICAL Feeds Import and Export

If it comes down to Exchange 2008 vs. Zimbra, you also might still be able to preserve Zimbra by purchasing NE Standard for the first 50 users, and then a 25-user NE Pro license. I'll bet it still comes out cheaper than an Exchange infrastructure, and the Outlook guy will get what he needs, unless he depends on certain very specific Outlook + Exchange features.

[sangamc]

I already tabled that option, but since it will be less than 5 users who need these features, and they also need to be on the same server as the open source users, i quickly found out it was a no go

I can see the option to share calendars and contacts in the preferences tab of a users mailbox ... i just cant get it to work with outlook.

[ewilen]

Right, if you want them on the same server, then the whole server needs to be at least Network Edition. But you can mix NE and Pro on the same server. Again, compare the costs either with yearly contracts or perpetual. I would be surprised if Exchange comes out on top over any reasonable stretch of time.

As for getting it to work with FOSS, see the link. It's a cheap option, and there's a free trial. I think you'd be missing free/busy access, but that might be about it. And you can fake that by creating a freebusy url entry for the contacts he is interested in: How to use the Internet Free/Busy feature in Outlook and then for a given user, http://<server>/home/<user@domain>/?fmt=ifb

[sangamc]

so far i cant get the calendar to work at all. Free/busy is not so critical if there is no calendar yet. Ill keep working to find a way to make shared calendars and contacts show up in outlook with read/write if possible, or at least read only if there is no other way

Sadly when dealing with non technical senior members of our organization, the cost of exchange vs zimbra network or even open source is not a factor. we have the licenses and the hardware so the only cost is my own time