Rant! was ACM Technews Snippet

[Michael Smarsz]

-----Original Message-----
From: Peter Lavender
Sent: Wednesday, 8 January 2003 9:40 AM

>I don't have a choice, I have to use Windows, and outlook is by far
>the best email client/PIM I have used.. Notes sucks, and I have just
>been testing things iwth groupwise and I'm not all that impressed with
>the GW client.
>...
>Simple answer, install notes in the back end and allow the Outlook
users
>to continue using their preferred client with out causing grief to the
>users of either platform.

You do know that Outlook can be used as the client to GW don't you?  GW
is a superior back-end to Exchange.  It has been a little while since I
last played with it though.  I actually quite liked the GW client (the
message tracking in particular).

>So, why have a clone of outlook?  Why the heck not?  I like it...

You pretty much summed it up in the following statement:

>If the majority of people are using winnows and thus either the
>outlook express or outlook client, surely an offering of a familiar,
>however superior (I love the LDAP look up for name completion it
>simply ROCKS!) application on an alternative OS is a good thing?

Only that you didn't mention that for acceptance in the desktop world,
you need to offer something that users are familiar with.  If you
dropped an Outlook user down in front of Mozilla mail, kmail, Eudora etc
they would struggle - put the same user in front of Evo and see how long
it takes for them to "adapt".

For Linux to gain a foothold in the desktop arena, the retrain time
needs to be minimal.  It's easy for technicaly inclined folk to switch
between a dozen differnet mail clients depending on the hour of the day,
but for the users out there it's too drastic a change.  Not to mention
the users that don't want to change clients (a la Notes users)

Microsoft managed to get Exchange/Outlook onto every desk because they
pulled at the "warm and safe" strings of execs/chiefs by providing a
corporate-wide version of Outlook Express.  "It's just like what you use
at home, only better..."  Unfortunate for everybody, but a fantastic
sales/marketing move.  Besides, once you have your foot in the door with
Exchange, you can play the "you should have all your eggs in one bask...
er all your servers with one vendor!"

Michael