Recently my employer's decision to move to MS Exchange for providing a collaborative platform in the enterprise sparked off exchange of opinions between my peers who had been using UNIX and similar systems, and Windows aficionados . One such topic that was hotly debated was how to circumvent the MS Outlook and still be able to use the MS Exchange Server (MSE).
Many a times, whatever be the reasons classical, traditional or political, UNIX 'bigots' resist to 'condescend' and use Outlook or similar integrated GUI clients (e.g. Web Client on IE) for MSE and instead devise ingenious ways to acheive connectivitity by using traditional UNIX scripts like Pine, Mutt, Elm, Fetchmail and so on. While, most of these work to provide simple SMTP, POP/IMAP access + Filter capabilities, they miss out to exploit MSE's rich collaborative features.
Though, personally I am not a big fan of M$, yet, I don't snub at anything and everything good in life, simply because it is from M$ or they are also used by dorks :-). MSE is not an email server only that most of us think (and believe) it is. Win2k, Kerberos, Active Directory, Exchange and Outlook forms a potent collaborative platform for an enterprise. Just look at its suite of offerings: Calendar, Tasks, Follow-up reminders, Delegation, Public Folders, Rich Text support, Enterprise Directory and so on (some of them may have ideated from products like Novell GroupWise or Lotus Domino). One good reason to stay close to Outlook/WebMail via IE is that, we get to use all these feature which, I think, any combination of Pine/Fetchmail/Elm et al can't do? However, MSE has earned a bad reputation for proliferation of viruses and worms that choke networks. But, most of the times, it is proliferated due to gullible outlook users and ignorant System Administrators, a fact, cleverly exploited by mischief mongers- also called hackers. With proper security planning, user awareness and hardening of Windows Systems, I feel, such a menace can be reduced to a great extent.
We the Developers, have our own preferences towards tools, platforms, configurations and almost everything, held and cultivated over the years, either by choice or by compulsion (lack of alternatives, too good to detach etc.). We make our own 'indirections' for every problem we face in our daily setup and cling on to them religiously...all these ideas work for individual and I am sure some of these would be hard to promote or override lest it leads to acrimonious exchange and thrusting of ideas. Nevertheless, for a large setup like enterprise, deciding and using a collaborative tool is a part of wider corporate 'strategy' and most often taken with a democratic or populistic view and as far as I know, usability of a Outlook + Exchange combination will defeat any *IX based collaborative tools available in the market today. At least, think from the perspective that such tools are used by people right from marketing directors to front office executives and they need to fix an appointment sometimes, with developers too! Also, think from the perspective how easily and cheaply you will find trained staffs to sustain such a platform- it all affect a TCO.
Further refs:
What Is Exchange Server? http://www.microsoft.com/exchange/evaluation/whatis.mspx
Microsoft Exchange Server resource site http://www.msexchange.org/
MS Exchange Blog http://hellomate.typepad.com/exchange/
