Topic: Horde - Funambol and exchange replacement

[mrjhb3]

Syncing horde with SME 7 probably won't give you what you want.  The syncing issue with using realms is supposed to be fixed in horde 3.3.8  All of those horde components have been updated for SME8 and should be in the smetest repo.  They were not updated for sme7.  I would test syncing on 8.  There was a bug opened for syncing on sme7, and AFAIK only one person really followed up with the horde developers.  So, it didn't really seem like a big issue for the majority of people stating that they were having problems since they didn't followup.

John

[arnoldob]

Hey Daniel,

What other "exchange like application" did you settle on?

[daniel]

Didn't settle on anything yet, but have tested SOGo, Zarafa, SmarterMail, MailTraq, MailSite, hosted Rackspace Exchange.  Each have pluses and minuses for what I'm looking for. 

Some of these run on windows server, some on linux.  The linux platforms for testing are SME8b5.  My personal like is Zarafa over SOGo for the web interface.  The most difficult thing about all this is evaluating one product that will sync with blackberry, smartphone, funambol, outlook, and now Ipad.

If people are interested I can post results when I make a final decision later next month.

[smiit]

I've been having very good results with the professional version of GroupOffice:

http://www.group-office.com/

The developer is active in the support forums and ticket requests and the software is updated regularly.  Price was reasonable compared to MS licenses.

I'm running it on a separate SME8 test server to handle calendar/contacts/tasks with the mail staying on a production 7.5 server.  Syncs well with latest beta Funambol in Thunderbird 3.  Syncs on iPhone, iPad etc. as an Exchange Server (turn mail off).  Windows smartphones work great but haven't tested Blackberry extensively - I think that needs Funambol app on phone.

The most functionality comes from using the product's web interface.  Some things don't seem to be available in Thunderbird (busy/free and calender overlay views) and Apple devices have trouble with .ics files.

But so far it's been the easiest groupware solution to maintain, get productive results out of and is visually pleasing and intuitive to end users.

Your mileage may vary!

[cactus]

If people are interested I can post results when I make a final decision later next month.

Please do so! I am interested in a comparison, especially pros and cons for one to the other.

[kevinb]

If people are interested I can post results when I make a final decision later next month.

I am interested too. We settled on SOGo because we wanted to replace Outlook as well as Exchange but I am interested in what others have concluded.

[byte]

So far, I'm swinging to Zarafa, it seems to be a more mature and plus the zarafa outlook client is a major plus considering my users wishes to stick with LookOut! another big plus is the zarafa outlook client works with outlook 2000, 2002, 2003 and 2007 (considering we still use Outlook 2000 )

Only potential downside with zarafa is it uses its own storage engine.

I think SOGo is a potential great up and coming groupware but still has a way to go considering it doesn't really have a smooth outlook client and lets be honest all normal users prefer the MS way regardless of how much we try to insist on using better designed products

[daniel]

I'm also thought Zarafa was a more mature business level product.  However I still have a couple issues that I cannot make work.  1.  Could not get webcal to work so I could connect ipad/ipod to read user calendars.  2.  Blackberry Enterprise Service needs an outlook workstation to manage it and it needs an older version of BES 4.1.6.  I haven't even attempted that setup yet 3.  Make all data transfers encrypted for security.    I loved the fact that Zarafa in ldap mode worked fluidly wiht SME 8b5, but I had issues when it came to setting authentications in outlook.  Moved Zarafa to db mode and using the smeserver-zarafa control panel, made everything work correctly.   If I could easily solve those three issues I would probably use Zarafa on SME8b5 and remove Horde for a single server approach.   Zarafa had a good MS Outlook connecter as well.  Once we get a SME8 Release Candidate I'll be able to move it into production environments for some real load tests.

I also did a quick look at group-office.  In this environment, everyone here thinks Outlook is the only way to manage themselves along with all the smart phone syncs to outlook.  Its so entrenched I couldn't handle a webmail package that didn't to a strong degree emulate and show the same data as outlook on the PC level. 

As to looking at exchange alternatives in a windows environment, I've looked at SmarterMail, Mail Traq, and now Mailsite Fusion.  Each have certain difficulties in setting up and none of them are what I would consider the perfect exchange replacement.  Of course they also have a pricetag to them as well, anywhere from $500-$2000 depending on what features I happen to need for my system.  If I do decide to go with a windows based mail package, I will be using VMware to run it over top of SME Server.  BTW- VMWare is a great product for SME, I'm running 3 servers on top of SME and everything runs with great performance.

The final alternative I've looked at is having my exchange server hosted for a monthly fee.  I can get everything I need for about $200 a month with all the smartphone/blackberry sync options as well.   I'm willing to help test and mature some of these exchange like packages when I get free time if some others that are more knowledgeable about linux applications can make suggestions and documentations for the SME Groups.