Zimbra vs. Scalix

[ilsa]

Do you have any clients other than Blackberry? Zimbra is a solid product, but it is aimed primarily as an exchange replacement. It has connectors for Outlook, and an excellent web client, but support for other clients such as mac are spotty at best.

I've heard many good things about a product called Kerio Connect, but it's lack of a free version is a nonstarter for me. If you need to be able to connect to a wide variety of devices/operating systems/clients (including various mobile ones) you will want to give that a look.

[LondonConsultant]

We have to handle plenty of other clients such as Macs - in fact the chief decision makers are using Macs. There are also other mobile devices. Clearly going down the Zimbra route would knock out Blackberries as RIM doesn't support Zimbra so so long as ActiveSync is available, most other devices should be handled should they not?

Will look at Kerio in more detail so thanks for that suggestion.

[phoenix]

Originally Posted by ilsa

Do you have any clients other than Blackberry? Zimbra is a solid product, but it is aimed primarily as an exchange replacement. It has connectors for Outlook, and an excellent web client, but support for other clients such as mac are spotty at best.

It also has a BES Blackberry connector: Zimbra Connector for BlackBerry Enterprise Server 6.5 GA is available!

[LondonConsultant]

Originally Posted by phoenix

It also has a BES Blackberry connector: Zimbra Connector for BlackBerry Enterprise Server 6.5 GA is available!

Sadly RIM take the stance that unless a developer has a license agreement in place with them any "Connector" that they offer to connect to a BES is unsupported and thus should not be used. Currently there are only three such licencees: MS, IBM and Novell. No sign of Zimbra or VMWare in RIM's lists... Our relationship with RIM means that we really can't advise an unlicensed connector but instead we are prepared to look at non-BES solutions (ie ActiveSync where the licensing is a little more relaxed surprisingly).

[friedmar]

Hi,

Mac support is absolutely no problem because Zimbra uses standards like CardDAV and CalDAV. So syncing with IOS devices and OSX works out of the box.

IOS devices recognize zimbra (via ActiveSync) as Exchange server.
The only product not supported is Outlook 2011. But as of today nobody, not even Microsoft, supports full syncing wis OSX.

[LMStone]

Originally Posted by LondonConsultant

Sadly RIM take the stance that unless a developer has a license agreement in place with them any "Connector" that they offer to connect to a BES is unsupported and thus should not be used. Currently there are only three such licencees: MS, IBM and Novell. No sign of Zimbra or VMWare in RIM's lists... Our relationship with RIM means that we really can't advise an unlicensed connector but instead we are prepared to look at non-BES solutions (ie ActiveSync where the licensing is a little more relaxed surprisingly).

FWIW, we used to run our own BES server, but when it came time to expand found it to be cost-prohibitive vs. software licensed on each phone which provides Active Sync services.

AstraSync we have found to be reliable on Blackberry devices less than two years old.

The users are happy because there are less support issues than with a BES server and the price is less. We are happy because we don't have the administration costs and challenges of maintaining a BES server.

I used to be a die-hard "you'll get my Blackberry only when I'm dead and gone" advocate, and for sure they remain great devices within their own ecosystem. But I felt that I should try an iPhone so I could speak knowledgeably with clients about it, and shortly thereafter gave up my Blackberry, willingly.

Transitioning to the iPhone from a Blackberry was exceedingly frustrating for the first few days because where I thought my fingers were contacting the glass was off by a mm or two. Consequently, what I was typing was mostly gibberish, and when I went to hit the backspace key and hit the carriage return key instead I only made it worse. Plus, I had gotten really good at spinning the ball very effectively. But, the integration between the applets in the iPhone (e.g. mail, contacts and calendar) is so superior to that of the Blackberry that I am much more productive on the iPhone to the point where I often am able to travel without my laptop (which BTW runs Linux).

Probably that's more than you wanted to hear, but the bottom line is that we encourage smaller clients to migrate away from Blackberry as a matter of course, before investing in a BES. We encourage larger clients to test iPhones and consider a cost-benefit review at BES license renewal time.

To be fair, there remain a number of things you can do on a BES that you cannot do with a standalone ActiveSync phone, but now that you can brick iPhones through Zimbra, that often-touted key advantage of a BES has been nullified.

Apologies if this post comes across as BES-bashing; that's not my intent at all! For us and the majority of our clients, individual deployments of AstraSync have proven to be advantageous over BES deployments.

With best regards,
Mark