What about Oracle's Beehive Collaboration suite? It has a good outlook integration and a host of open standard features. Based on the concept of workspaces, I think it's a great alternative to exchange+sharepoint.
What about Oracle's Beehive Collaboration suite? It has a good outlook integration and a host of open standard features. Based on the concept of workspaces, I think it's a great alternative to exchange+sharepoint.
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Limited testing results in limited results
I have to disagree on the assumption that Microsoft Outlook is the best and therefore the exclusive e-mail client that could be selected. It's propensity for failure and transport of viral like content is well documented. Limiting testing to Outlook as a client limits the results that can be obtained.
Stable and safe e-mail clients are very available as are generic and specific integrations when required.
I would like to see the become a regular feature in NetworkWorld. A regular review of Exchange, Notes and GroupWise, the number 1,2 & 3 messaging services available today would be helpful. Perhaps every time a vendor revs a product compare them against existing version of the competition. Then compare these against some of the very viable competition that was reviewed in this story.
Also don't forget the TCO of an installation. All to often a new or upgraded messaging solution gets dumped on the IT department and it's left to them to try to figure out how to maintain the solution.
Thanks.
Yes, which is why we tested with multiple clients
I agree, but I don't understand why you think this is the only way we tested. Perhaps you didn't read the test. We tested with Outlook, which is a requirement in any business today, along with IMAP clients, mobile clients, and webmail clients.
Any product that doesn't support Outlook is clearly unrealistic for today's business climate. But we considered Outlook a necessary, but not sufficient, condition to test.
Looking at Groupwise does seem to be a waste of time. Between Lotus and Microsoft, at least 96% of the market is covered. While any individual product has a lot of happy adherents, I can't imagine that any significant number of users would care about anything but the big two. And even in that market, I am not sure what the point is--people have their religion, and no one is going to jump from one to another for purely technical reasons.
Novell Groupwise, still the one for me...
Scalable, secure, robust, and just darn good... How many can say that their mailserver has been up for months or years... I can because Groupwise is our collaboration suite...
Open X-Change
Alternatives to Exchange, but never considered Open X-Change? http://www.open-xchange.com
Has all the features mentioned, plus has an community (free) edition. Definitely an alternative that should have been looked at.
Open-Xchange was invited but did not participate in the test
We invited Open-Xchange, but they decided not to come.
novell groupwise
in addition to being scalable, robust and very reliable, very easy to manage. one person a few hours a week can easily manage hundreds of accounts.
Groupwise just didn't show up on our radar
Sorry, Groupwise fans, but Novell just didn't show up on our radar in the mid-size email business.
When you're looking at this space, Microsoft and Lotus together own 96% of the on-site mail service in businesses (the numbers that IDC, Ferris, and Radicati offer all vary a lot, but no one seems to give the non-MS/non-Lotus camp more than 10% total for everyone). Slicing up the remaining piece is a pretty difficult task, with lots of little players. While Groupwise used to be a major mover-and-shaker, there is no obvious "#3" in this business anymore.
It's clear that we've got a pile of Groupwise fans (why am I remembering the Windows vs. Netware war of about 10 years ago???) here, so maybe we should take a quick look at Groupwise and see how it stacks up.
Re: Groupwise just didn't show up on our radar
Joel, let's be honest - maybe your radar is defective. MS and Lotus do not own 96% of the market unless you count all the outlook express clients - free with every copy of Windows. Maybe the reason you're getting so many Groupwise fans is that we're out here in the trenches using it, while you're busy talking to the CIOs who don't have a clue why their operating costs are out of sight. And you're right, it's just like Netware 10 years ago - rip out a well run, mature system for something that runs poorly and costs 2-4 times as much.
If you do take a look at Groupwise make sure to at least talk to an expert during the design and implementation. Installation is pretty easy for a simple system but it's also easy to overthink the design and create a substandard nightmare. Oh, and be aware that while it runs on Netware, linux and Windows performance on Windows servers is (according to consultants with serious experience) lower than either Netware or linux. Not critically so and you should be able to simulate a thousand users on a decent server, but it will be slower.
Oh, and it's not so much being a Groupwise fan, it's experience. I've installed, maintained and repaired a lot of Exchange, and a lot of Groupwise when I was a consultant. Guess which one consistently costs more?
Agree, but doesn't matter
I know what you're saying, and I agree with you. It is interesting to see the comments against you, like the one talking about adherents to failed software from a failed company - I guess they don't know that Novell is alive and well, a major player in Linux, and that Groupwise is not only viable but a multi-platform capable offering. I also wouldn't judge the quality of a product by how big the software company is that wrote it - that's a possible support issue, but not a quality issue.
However, Microsoft now owns the world. Exchange is used by most shops, but most shops have moved to Active Directory and Windows Servers. Why? Because it was easy to do, whether it was right or wrong, better or worse. Anyone can put a CD in a drive, run setup.exe, and click next, next, ..., finished. Whether it was well architected, well thought out, etc. didn't matter. VHS beat out Betamax, but Beta was a better technology - didn't matter.
That said, I am in an Exchange shop now, and find it easy to use and support. Add Windows Mobile in for remote access, and it's painless. However, I think it is in the mobile connectivity area that Exchange does fail - only Win Mobile and iPhones connect natively to it, NOT BLACKBERRY or others. It also fails in the area of workflow support (get Lotus Notes instead for that, and that's why Lotus is still in use in all Fortune 500 shops!). And no native archive/retrieve functionality, in this day and age of litigation and legal requirements?!! Microsoft is missing out in these areas at this time. If I have to use additional products to get those features, then Exchange is at risk of replacement because of those needs and demands.
gmail + google apps
Gmail + gtalk + google apps is another interesting option.
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