ms Exchange alternative

[Mark Blackman]

Ludovic Simpson wrote:
> Hi all,
>  
> Looking for an alternative setup for ms exchange.. (primary mailserver
> for ms clients) ..
> I'm new the the .nix world and have been playing with freebsd 5.1. (i 
> like it ).
> Id love an opensource groupware product but dont want anything like 
> phpgroupware or kroupware.

The key question to ask yourself is how bad do you want MAPI? MAPI
is Microsoft's messaging API (over RPC) and gives you access to
all of their interesting groupware capabilities (shared calendars primarily).
The only MAPI solutions are commercial and involve at least

* MS itself
* Communigate Pro
* Samsung Contact

>  
> I want to acheive a "proper" email server, i think it will have to be 
> imap + smtp. so client pcs can store mail on the server. using ms 
> outlook or equivalent.
> have done a bit of web research and currently reading a freebsd textbook 
> but i dont seem to be finding the "right" answers for my situation.
>  
> If anyone have done the same/similar thing or knows of a good resource 
> pool, please let me know...

If IMAP is sufficient for your requirements (and it probably is),
then you should consider Cyrus or Courier. There are a number of SMTP
MTAs  but the four most popular for opensource systems are Sendmail,
qmail, Postfix and Exim.

There are some (commercial) client-side  fudges that  synchronize
a local Outlook folder to an IMAP folder on a remote server and give
you some of the required groupware features when combined with
shared IMAP folders. The most prominent of which is the Bynari
InsightConnector. A list of these fudges may be found at ..

http://www.slipstick.com/outlook/share.htm

The following URL appears gives an overview of turning
IMAP into a groupware solution using Bynari InsightConnector.

http://www.exchangeadmin.com/Articles/Index.cfm?ArticleID=24138

Do you need anything but IMAP?

Cheers,
Mark

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