[ale] Exchange calendar replacement

[Jim Philips]

Steve Tynor wrote:
> All,
> 
> Management is finally getting tired of Exchange slowness and buggyness,
> and the Windows sysadmin's insistance that the answer is to upgrade to
> newer version of Exchange and Win2003 and worse, new hardware.  I'm on
> the verge of convincing them to just switch to a linux sendmail/POP/IMAP
> infrastructure -- email clients will remain predominantly Outlook --
> I can't and don't want to change that.
> 
> Switching from Exchange's MAPI interface, however, means that users will
> have to give up on the tight Calendar integration with Outlook.  
> 
> Do any of you have any specific recommendations about Calendar
> replacements?  I've seen half a dozen web-based calendars on google that
> all look more or less the same.  Are any more or less compatible with
> Outlook (I've not found any inexpensive MAPI alternatives, so I assume
> that nothing will actually integrate with Outlook - the webbased
> calendar would be a separate application).  Stalker's CommunigatePro
> gets good reviews and claims to emulate MAPI, but when you add all the
> bells and whistles, it's pretty expensive).
> 
> Anyone have opinions about Outlook/Calendar alternatives?   Any other
> words of wisdom of things to watch out for in such a transition?
> 
> Thanks!
> Steve

We just had this question about a week ago. The open source alternitives 
are:

http://www.opengroupware.org

http://kolab.kde.org

I know that Kolab can work with Exchange clients and I believe 
OpenGroupware does as well. MAPI integration is another question, 
though. I don't know what might replace that.