Setting up Interop with Exchange 2003 and Zimbra

[InnerwerX]

We originally used Exchange 2003 for a small group of 12 of us. We migrated to ZCS GLA 5.0 last year and are mostly happy with the product.

The only issue we had was our CEO (Check Writer) has a WM5 Phone and the fact that he lost his ability to use the ActiveSync functionality with the phone, now we could of course use POP or IMAP, but this was not a good solution. He has made do over the past months with having to duplicate his work (Calendar and Contacts) in Outlook and then manually sync his phone when in the office.

Well he is upgrading his phone to WM6.1 and no longer wants to go through this hassle, he wants the ability he had in the past of syncing with the Exchange server, contacts and calendars. He also wants his Outlook to work like it should.

I told him that to keep using Zimbra then we would need to pay $900 for the Professional version so that his Outlook would sync correctly and then another $500 for Zimbra Mobile so his phone will sync correctly.

Well he sneered and said to just put Exchange back up, as he is tired of making the changes manually everyday....

So here is the question; can Exchange and Zimbra play nice together, can I install Exchange 2003 and have it sync with Zimbra, this way he can have what he had. The other 2 executives want Outlook functionality back, and this would solve it for them. Or do I just leave Zimbra and convert us all back to Exchange, how hard is this going to be? Are their export tools?

Sorry for the long email, I am tired of this battle, and honestly wish at this time I had just stayed with Exchange 2003.