"Google's licensing of these Microsoft patents relating to the Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync protocol is a clear acknowledgement of the innovation taking place at Microsoft."

It is nothing to do with the EU ruling forcing them to license the protocol? Do you seriously think Microsoft would license ActiveSync to Google unless they had to? The licensing cost will be nothing compared to the market they lose because every phone can sync with Exchange (instead of just WM phones).

"Microsoft announced that it will demand 0.4 percent of the revenue (rather than 5.95 percent) in patent-licensing royalties, only from commercial vendors of interoperable software and promised not to seek patent royalties from individual open source developers. The interoperability information alone is available for a one-time fee of €10,000 (US$15,992)."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_Microsoft_antitrust_case#Follow-up

€10,000 is peanuts... Thanks EU - again!

Quoting Microsoft

"The availability of licenses related to protocols and file formats may enable competitors to develop software products that better mimic the functionality of our own products which could result in decreased sales of our products."

Boo hoo. Microsoft will face competition. It must be terrible for them.

P.S. I wonder how the patent license fee will be paid if Google does not charge for its product?

The agreement sounds like it is a percentage of revenue, but any percentage of 0 is still 0.

It reminds me of how MS screwed Spyglass Inc over the licensing of their Mosiac rendering engine.

Payback is a bitch!

Hey idiot, you dont know what services Microsoft will offer at MWC yet.

And google did not just license Exchange Activesync for Windows Mobile, but for the iPhone too.

Even Google realizes how important Microsoft is. :)

@Andre Da Costa:

You are right. Google well knows the importance of "Know Thy Enemy".

"Why should anyone pay 99 bucks a year for MobileMe, when Google offers similar capabilities for free?"

That's the great part of competition, you pay your money and take your choice, rather than being forced into one provider.

I would imagine people who want no ads and a slightly less reliable service will go with MobileMe over Google. Personally I would prefer a service that I paid for, but guarantees that I can export my data to another provider at any time.

Joe:'There's a bit of superiority in the approach'...
...'before Microsoft, it's game over.'

True

----------------
More Than 40 Android Phones to Come in 2009
http://news.softpedia.com/news/More-Than-40-Android-Phones-to-Come-in-2009-103985.shtml
O2 Germany alone plans on launching around 6 to 8 handsets

The first Android-powered mobile phone was launched about four months ago, and yet the expectations for the platform rise higher and higher every day. According to the latest news on the web, we might be able to see around 40 new handsets running the operating system launched during the ongoing year. At least this is what VentureBeat predicts that would happen.

At the same time, we learned that O2 Germany plans to unveil around 6 to 8 Android handsets in 2009, and that can make fan boys of the OS rejoice. The info has been unveiled at an Official Press Conference at O2 Innovation Days in Germany, when a product manager stated “We want to get out 6 to 8 Android devices this year,” as quoted by a German blog. O2 Germany, a subsidiary of Telefonica and Open Handset Alliance member, is expected to support Android, yet the high number of devices they plan on launching this year comes as a surprise.

'Microsoft's ridiculously named My Phone service'

Ha,ha,ha
When MS advertise about MY Phone the people will buy the I Phone, ha,ha,ha.

When the terms get confused, the most known object/subject will be the winner (the most bought, in this case).

Marco, you probably can't even afford an iPhone. I don't mean that as a disrespect either, but knowing how much you hate proprietary solutions, loving Apple is loving the poster child of proprietary and closed architectures.

If Microsoft had a trademark case against Lindows, then surely Apple has a case against MiPhone?

They should have just called it Windows Mobile Live Mesh Sync.

# Andre Da Costa May 23rd, 2008 at 10:53 pm
http://www.upstartblogger.com/free-mac-book-air-and-five-free-iphones
Hi Ashely,

You are linked on my Windows Community based website ‘Teching It Easy’ under the ‘My Favorite Spots’ category.

I am begging please let me win this MacBook Air, I am desperate for a laptop like this. I would appreciate it so much. If you let me win it I can even get additional links at popular websites where you can get to increase your readership. I want an Apple laptop so bad that I have gone as far as emailing Steve Jobs asking for a free MacBook Air, he replied with a polite ‘Sorry, but no’ Sent from my iPhone, LOL!. There are a number of reasons I need this notebook, its slim design, my Dell Latitude 840c died on me in February, I like the look of Leopard and I am just desperate right now.

(Thank you Goblin for the link))
----------
Andre, Andre (Sniff, resignation)......no comments (this might be too cruel).

Ah! I don't mean that as a disrespect as well.He,he.

Its interesting you post something lik that Marco, I do want a MacBook Air, I hear Boot Camp creates partition for Windows just fine. :)

Philosopher :
@Andre Da Costa:

You are right. Google well knows the importance of "Know Thy Enemy".
_________________________________________

More like they know about the growth of Microsoft Exchange in the Enterprise.

Apple also licensed ActiveSync for Exchange for the iPhone.

It does my heart good know that the competition has to bow down and kiss Bills ass because they can't make quality products like Exchange. Exchange hosted mail is a cash cow if there ever was one.

Don't bother with a Macbook Air Andre. It's an overated under featured over priced piece of crap.

If you want Mac goodness in a portable Macbook Pro is the only way to go.

Unlike most Mac users I'm not going to snow you and tell you everything they make is golden. They have excellent stuff but you're going to pay a premium for it. The Macbook Air is a fluff piece.

I installed Windows Vista Business on my friends first gen MacBook Pro last year as a gift. It was such an eye opener for her, she was able to utilize all the rich capabilities of Windows and seamlessly exchange files with her friends and family, connect to Campus Domain and do all the cool stuff Windows users everywhere experience. She rarely boots into Tiger, its actually default to boot into Windows Vista. She also got a license from her school to install Peach Tree Accounting so she could practice when she is at home.

@C.C. Torment:

Re: "Exchange hosted mail is a cash cow if there ever was one."

With an emphasis on the cow. Fat, bloated, overly complex, expensive. Cash? For now, yes. But not enough to prevent layoffs, is it??? Cow? Yup. Moooo!

If Google is such a worthless house of cards (to combine your view but with nicer phrasing together with Ballmer's view), then why does Monkey Boy explode into rage and throw a chair across the room when one of his employees goes to work for Google?

Is it because the sound of crashing chairs, like crashing Windows, fills him with boundless joy with the rich capabilities and cool smoothness of the breathtaking tapestry of broad functionality combined with the vast wealth of flying bits and rapid transfer of the mass of bio-engineered lumbar support flying through the Aero against the shattered glass of Windows that opens his eyes to the wondrous experience and warms the depths of his heart?

(Oops! I think Andre's post leaked down into mine....)

You bring up a good point though. While we're on this topic, I have a question. A business I have some contacts in is looking to replace their Exchange Server at some point over the next year. Can any one recommend a good solution? Open source or proprietary, doesn't matter. All that matters is that the license fees are less than Exchange, the reliability is better, and that, unlike Exchange, it plays fair with non-Windows OSes and mail clients.

(Goblin, Marco, Chips, Philosopher... anyone?)

Yes in Exchange is so awful Apple and Google are lining up to fellate MS for a piece of the action.

Sorry Philly it don't wash. It's the fastest growing corporate Email solution on the market.

By the way goofball Google laid off some folks too. We got this crazy little ditty going on called the GLOBAL ECONOMIC MELTDOWN.

No portion of the economy, no business will remain unscathed. Except maybe collection agencies and repo men. I hear business is absolutley Hawt for those fine gentlemen. In either case I'm glad to see another line of revenue going into Redmond. Not because I love Microsoft. But because I hate you guys.

I hate you so very very much.

In case that was directed at me, this is a legitimate question. Possible alternatives being looked into are Zimbra, OpenExchange, or negotiating with Gmail to host.

Any opinions/experiences from these? Any others that I might not know about?

@Will

Pft. If your exchange services are unreliable your IT apparatus sucks. Or you're on some outdated version of Exchange.

You could try Notes. Highly scalable rock solid messaging. Once you have it configured it runs like balls. (Management tools bite though.) It will run on non windows OSes, and has a web client. The thick client is an ugly unwieldy piece of crap. But being a Linux user you should be used to that.

And then theres Groupwise.

Groupwise is multi-platform like Notes. Nice client, outlook interoperability. No unified messaging to speak of. Clustering services suck... But who we kidding? If you can't afford Microsoft Licensing, you can't afford a redundant solution either. Oh and here's the killer for a guy like you. "Laff".... It's a Novell product. I know how you guys hate the big red N. And their licensing is typically more expensive than Microsoft. But hey you're not going to get past that N thing anyways.

There's always sendmail. I think.

It's not a matter of not being able to afford it. Believe me, that's not going to be a problem. But there's never any harm in looking at places where expenses can be cut. Or even if they can't, the vast majority of machines (desktops and servers) there are either OSX or Linux. Entourage works for the Macs, but there's no sense spending money on an email solution that doesn't treat roughly half of the computers there as first class citizens.

Now that I've said that, I forget: Are Macs forced to use OWA as well?

Oh and I'm not sure what G-Mail hosting costs.

I know some small business who've migrated to it that are doing okay.

If you ask me you're better off going opensource.

I'm serious about that. I'm not sure how big your company is but G-Mail is a bad idea for internal mail if you have more than 50 users. Especially since they don't have the whole offline mode thing worked out. And then there's the whole Malware issue. Exchange at least has a wide range of anti-malware products available for it. Google?

As Mister Wilcox about that.

And it's not like theres anything you can do about it. Go to the cloud and you go with whatever security measures they have. In either case The decision to outsource your mail solution is not one to be taken lightly. Appriver offers excellent services at a decent price. But hey you hates teh MS and they run Hosted Exchange. So just ignore the fact they offer reliable service and some of the best anti-spam filtering available.

Me I'd never except any hosted mail services if left to my own devices. After all, the cost for entry into a commercial product might be high, but you're not paying monthly fees. And you also don't have to worry about SLA's and all the headaches that come with them. As for opensource. You'd better make sure you find a product that's widely supported and fairly simple to manage. Otherwise you're setting yourself up for a fall.

But what the hell do I know? I've only been managing corporate LANs for 15 years. :P

@Will

No will Mac's have Entourage.
Of course that ain't free.

but it's a good thing because Safari and OWA don't work worth a damn. You can get your E-mail, but calandering is out of the question.

As for "Forced to use OWA"

Have you seen the latest OWA interface? Best web based E-mail client out there.

BTW if your Desktop base is that diverse then Exchange probably isn't your best option.

Good luck with that. I do know that Groupwise has clients that work on Linux. But I'm not sure where their Mac client's are. Notes? Who knows.

I can think of several solutions to your problem, from terminal serivces, to Metaframe, to application virtulization. None of them are cheap and all of them come with their own levels of complexity.

Guess you could toss Wine on your Linux boxes, Entorage on your Macs, and have a go. Other than that? Beats me.

Well, first, the decision is not mine, nor is it certain that Exchange will be replaced, but options are being explored. I'm only looking to see what is out there. Second, I don't hate MS. I hate corrupt business practices and intentionally breaking interoperability to stifle competition.

For example, last time I used an Exchange server OWA, some of the features, such as mail search, were not available except to IE. If those features were extended to Firefox and all other main browsers, it wouldn't be an issue. You yourself said that Safari and OWA don't work at all.

I recently tested Exchange Server 2007 SP1. Very easy to setup and reliable and Outlook Web Access is just so rich and seamless like the desktop client. :)

Andre, if you have some useful advice on the subject

(and installing Vista/7 on every Mac and Linux box is out of the question -- just joking around so don't take that harshly b/c it wasn't intended so)

then I welcome it. But I'm afraid press releases or testimonials aren't really going to be of much help here.

Unless you can tell me that OWA now extends all features to non-IE browsers and treats them as equals. That would be good to hear. Because unfortunately, I've seen a few seams in it.

@ CC.Torment

Thanks for the tips.

But I gotta wonder. In your posts here and elsewhere, you really seem to dislike open source. Or is it the open source supporters? Anyway, just an observation, but I was wondering why.

@Will.

Well like I said will. There are RDP clients out there for Linux and Mac. I don't see how Microsoft broke any standards with Exchange OWA. They did make Entourage and Microsoft Office for Mac afterall. Are they an evil corporation trying to make a buck. Yup. So is Apple. Why do I have a Mac at all? Several excellent applications that won't run anywhere else but a Mac. For that matter I can't even install their OS anywhere.... but on their hardware. Thems the breaks.

Eventually they will be forced to extend outlook to multiple browser types because I.E. is losing ground. Until then maybe you should look elsewhere. And I'm not the guy to ask. I've managed 3 Mail platforms. Notes, Groupwise, Exchange. All for Networks with Windows/Mac Desktops. Not a single one with Linux. (unless you count the Novell SLED desktops we kicked around for a bit before ripping all Novell products out. The Groupwise client worked well on SLED.... but hey it's Novell's platform.)

@Will

Actually No will I don't hate opensource.

I don't even hate Linux.

I hate Linux on the desktop, but don't begrudge those who do like it.

What I do hate are the JerkWads who troll here who seem to think one's choice of OS is a moral failing. I'm no fan of Mac Users for that very reason even though I really like the platform. Or if you mention the fact that some MS products actually WORK. And work well... well hells bells you must be a Laptop toting, shill, softie nazi.

Exchange when configured correctly (fairly easy to do so) If a fine feature RICH (yes I said it) product. Of course the other major platforms are also very stable. Notes has built in E-mail Archival that just works. None of the other major platforms has that right out of the box. I just don't know of any opensource product that I'd trust my companies E-Mail to. Not because there are none. But because I stick with products that we can easily find support for.

These are the products I've deployed in our infrastructure that use opensource.

MYSql
VMWare ESX (runs on redhat)
Messagescreen (Anti-Spam)(redhat)
Apache (multi platform)
SecureMail (E-mail encryption)(redhat)
Websense Content Protection Suite (redhat)

These are services that I not only implemented but CHOSE, because they offer best in class service at a decent price, and have a dedicated support base.

I'm not an enemy of open source. I'm just not going to trust my Job to something that's unwieldy and or untested.

It has nothing to do with Exchange being good or not, Google and Apple license the protocols because it makes them money. It is a very bad deal for Microsoft because they are priced at only 10,000 euros each.

Before the EU judgment Microsoft would not license the Exchange protocol to anyone and would sue them if they implemented it. They had a monopoly on Exchange clients and it sold millions of Windows Mobile phones.

The result is good for everyone, unless you are a MSFT shareholder.

Re: "I don't see how Microsoft broke any standards with Exchange OWA."

The only two clients that work well with OWA are IE (Windows only) and Firefox with the IE Tab extension (Windows only). No other clients work well with OWA. What standards DIDN'T Microsoft break?

Re: "They did make Entourage and Microsoft Office for Mac afterall."

Many .doc files created on Microsoft Office for Mac open with formatting problems in Microsoft Office for Windows.

At first, I thought it was OpenOffice.org's inability to properly render MS Office for Mac documents. Then folks running MS Office for Windows got the exact same problem with the same rendering and formatting quirks.

Even Microsoft can't read Microsoft "standards".

The solution was, and is, PDF export. It provides the best way for proper formatting to be maintained across readers on all platforms.

Will, Outlook Web Access 2007 looks a bit better than 2003 under Firefox, but it does not have the rich functionality like you would in IE 7. :)

Thanks for the update, Andre. It's been a while since I've used an Exchange email account.

I guess it's too bad that Microsoft isn't capable enough to support more than one browser.

@CC.Torment, we use gmail's service for internal email. Of course we're a small consulting company so it fits us well.

Regarding your doubts here's what I know out of personal experience. GMail supports IMAP so you can download your emails and have them offline. Email attachments are scanned before the link to download them is shown. Links in emails are scanned when clicked on, this helps prevent entry to malicious sites.

In regards to number of users. GMail is free for up to 50 accounts and costs $50.00 / user / year if you go the Pro edition. The Pro edition also includes a set of APIs that allow integration into your companies infrastructure. For example integration to LDAP and Active Directory. I haven't personally used any of the API features though so I can't comment.

There are a lot of tools developed by third parties. You might want to visit here to get a look at what's out.

www.google.com/enterprise /marketplace/

Gerardo Tasistro

Sorry for the Info Gerardo, but I'm really not interested.

For a company with 50 users Exchange on SBS is more than adequate.

As I said, I wouldn't trust my company's E-mail with any outsourced provider. Not google, not appriver.

I guess If I worked for a really small firm I'd consider it. But a really small firm wouldn't need
a Network, virtulization, and storage expert.

Sounds like a nice option for will though.

Philosopher :

Well hell Philly, of COURSE microsoft wants to lock you in with their products. But exchange isn't a STANDARD. it's PROPRIETARY SOFTWARE.

And they're hardly the only company that engages in such conduct.

And there are plenty of other options out there for messaging that offer cross platform support.

And if Exchange is the bloated piece of unreliable crap you say it is why do you even care? Exchange is hardly a Monopoly product.

(Clue... Exchange is excellent. It's scalable, effeicent and has an unparralelled ecosystem of management tools and intergration with dozens of CRM suites.)

You'd think that a rabid Anti-MS reactionist like you would LIKE the fact that it lacks operability with certain platforms. If you ask me it's to their detriment.

In closing:
Find a solution that fits your needs and quitcher b17ch1n.

Will;'Possible alternatives being looked into are Zimbra, OpenExchange, or negotiating with Gmail to host.'
I heard good opinions about Zarafa http://zarafa.com/?q=en/content/products
But I didn't try it (you know ...Gmail!)

1. You are the one who called Exchange a cow. I only agreed.

2. I know Exchange is proprietary. And I know that Microsoft isn't the only company that tries to ram their proprietary standards down peoples' throats. What I don't know is why is's OK to point out that Google, Apple, Sun, IBM, and others are forcing their own lock-in, but it's not OK to point out that Microsoft engages in the same behavior.

3. "effeicent"??? "unparralelled"???? "intergration"?????? Firefox on Linux has a wonderful spell checker. Maybe you should try it?

4. I have found solutions that fits my needs, and I don't mind sharing them with others. Funny, it's the rabid Microsoft worshipers such as yourself that do most of the complaining.

Even the most vehement Microsoft worshiper I know, who I also value as a close friend (we don't have to agree; we just don't let it get personal), migrated his small software development company to Subversion for source-code control. He couldn't justify the high-priced Microsoft source code control product, even though he exclusively creates C# products of his own for Microsoft .NET.

It's not rabid complaining to avoid Microsoft products; it's pragmatism based on some combination of cost, function, and freedom.

I have the same dim view of IBM. I don't understand why a company would pay IBM $10K for Apache when they can get the exact same Apache for themselves? Support? For another huge fee, they'll give you less support than you can get from Google.

But those who worship Microsoft as a sacred religion don't seem to grasp this concept.

@CC.Torment

"For a company with 50 users Exchange on SBS is more than adequate."

Exactly my point! Why pay for something that exceeds your needs when you can get what fits your needs for free? Not many companies today, if any, have money to burn.

Something more about Gmail;
Import Contacts and Mail to Gmail
http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2009/02/import-contacts-and-mail-to-gmail.html
Gmail includes some options that let you import contacts and messages, but they're not very easy to use and migrating data to Gmail is not straightforward. But things are about to change: Google has partnered with TrueSwitch and Gmail will start to include a simple migration tool that works with some of the most popular mail services (AOL Mail, Yahoo Mail, Hotmail and many services provided by ISPs and mobile carriers).

OWA did not break any standards. OWA created the standards. XMLHttp and AJAX all came from OWA. OWA is the first AJAX application and was created more than 10 years ago. This is true whether people like it or not. Yeah Microsft does not innovate...I know...

Mac clone maker wins legal round against Apple

Psystar can argue Apple abused copyright laws, judge rules

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9127579

"A federal judge last week ruled that Psystar Corp. can continue its countersuit against Apple Inc., giving the Mac clone maker a rare win in its seven-month-old battle with Apple.

He also hinted that if Psystar proves its allegations, others may then be free to sell computers with Mac OS X already installed."
--------------------------------------------------
This could turn out to be a problem for M$, if someday, say Dell could sell its computers with MAC OS X on them. If Apple were to lose their case, I do not see the problem for them, as Apple could raise the price of Mac OS X, and reduce the price of Mac computers, in order to balance.

@to everyone real here:
Why feed the Andre clone trolls?

Sunbelt Software Announces Top Ten Spyware/Malware Threats for January

http://www.prweb.com/releases/January2009/MalwareThreats/prweb1971374.htm

"The top ten most prevalent spyware threats for the month of January are:

1. Virtumonde 6.35%

2. Trojan-Downloader.Zlob.Media-Codec 3.12%

3. Trojan-Downloader.Generic 2.01%

4. Trojan.FakeAlert 2.01%

5. Explorer32.Hijacker 2.00%

6. Trojan.Crypt.XPACK.Gen 1.83%

7. Trojan.1 1.45%

8. Trojan-Spy.Win32.Zbot.gen 1.38%

9. Rootkit.TDss.Gen 1.33%

10. Trojan.Win32.Monder.gen 1.25% "
--------------------------------------------------
And wonders of wonders, they all Windows malware. Isn't time to move to something safer?

@CC.Torment and Will:

I really enjoyed the both of your comments about the various applications to include exchange. I am a Network Admin where I work at. It's a small company that just bought up another smaller company. All in all, about 25 machines, all W2K and XP. Cripes, some of these machines are Home Edition which I am wiping out and upgrading to XP Pro SP3. The choice for Microsoft is not my own at all -- It is how it is, and I deal with it and move on.

So in moving on, I will be at the process of tying both places together. Pretty simple for me, security is always a must. Not only will I be responsible for basically taking two physical locations and putting all the machines on one network and domain, but responsible for network backups, systems restore, but coming up with an inner-office email service.

However, the servers are mine, meaning, whatever I want to run on them, three boxes, is totally up to me. You two guys been a wonderful help in this department.

With only 25 workstations, and three servers -- One of which does have a MS 2K3 license, which will remain so, the other two, are clean and I could load Redhat on either. Thanks again guys for the information.

@ CC. Torment Specifically:

"We got this crazy little ditty going on called the GLOBAL ECONOMIC MELTDOWN.

No portion of the economy, no business will remain unscathed. Except maybe collection agencies and repo men. I hear business is absolutley Hawt for those fine gentlemen. In either case I'm glad to see another line of revenue going into Redmond. Not because I love Microsoft. But because I hate you guys.

I hate you so very very much."

I cannot agree with you more on this issue here.

Almost forgot, yes, CC, I also agree, the "paid" subscriptions for the alternatives for Exchange is certainly not an option. I feel the same way as you, and those like you do about these services.

Thanks again...

For everyone:

Listen, I don't know about you, but here in the comments sections of whatever article that Mr. Wilcox may write, we get the same old clown coming here and posting links, articles, rants, and FUD. You are only seeing one side of their "political" or religious dogma.

In specific, MS malware threats. Listen Malware and virus threats (all one of the same -- Malware) are not limited to Microsoft and MS based systems. For the record, I personally use Solaris 10. Just in the event that these idiots here, and you all know who they are, accuse me of being someone else, or everyone else that "oppose" their sloped and tainted views, here's some information that you can view and read up on.

I assure you, this will broaden your horizons, those these clowns will obviously beg to differ.

"Protecting Linux Systems
Overview Due to its nature of open source code, Linux is fast becoming popular and is being deployed in ever increasing numbers on mail servers, corporate networks and desktops. Till recently, systems running on Linux were relatively free from virus and other threats. But with the greater penetration of Linux operating systems, virus authors have begun to target them.

This paper talks about threats faced by Linux mail servers and explains the recommended features that a good anti virus and anti Spam software should have."

You can go here for additional information: whitepapers.silicon.com/0,39024759,60088888p,00.htm

This is also nothing "Just New" in the event these clowns try that.

Here is a wonderful article that can take those wanting and appreciating a wider view at these threats: lxer.com/module/newswire/view/31417/index.html

Chips B Malroy :

I do not see the problem for them, as Apple could raise the price of Mac OS X, and reduce the price of Mac computers, in order to balance.
______________________________________

Of course you don't see it as a problem for Apple. Because you have oatmeal for brains.

Apple is a HARDWARE company. Who's going to buy expensive Mac hardware when they can get OSX to run on cheaper systems?

And then there's the development headaches. Macs run so well because the OS is tuned for the hardware they manufacture.

And just how much do you think they'd be able to raise the price of their OS with microsoft and opensource for competition in a jacked up economy?

@Shilo

I figured in this day and age, most so-called IT people who claim on their soapbox that they know a thing or two about "things" would make a critical error such as everyone's buddy, Chumps into assuming this as you pointed out.

In the Apple world, Mac is not just an OS, it's an entire system built from the ground up. When anyone buys Mac, they get hardware and software specifically for the Apple way of life.

Running Mac OS on anything but Apple is leading to some bitter tears later.

@Gerardo Tasistro :

If a product doesn't work right. Needs an inordinante amount of configuration or support... or specialized expertise to support.....

IT AIN'T FREE.

As for hosted services remember this. Ownership has it's priveliges. When your Mail solution isn't working, or you need integration with varying products and services, is an outside host for a free Mail solution going to be responsive to your support needs?

Be careful of the costs hiding behind "Free".

Absolutely true, CC.

Windows users known that the Malware problem is huge, as most have had their computers infected at least once. So the question should be asked why are more than 80% of home windows computers already infected with Malware?

The second question that needs to be asked, is why does M$ setup its windows install by default, insecure?

Now all Operating System have vulnerabilities, that is weak spots in some software that can or might be, exploited by a program, that has to be written know as malware. Windows has over One Million malware and its varents, written to use the exploits in Windows. Linux (most distro's) on the other hand, uses limit user accounts which take care of many of the exploits that our PRO-M$ posters like to refer to. The exploits are nothing without the malware written for them. Take for example, Mac OS X, with 10% of the desktop market by some accounts, it should have 100.000 pieces of malware written for it, as Windows has over One Million, But I bet there is only a few trojans written for it that one would have to download and install, at most. Linux is even more secure than MAC as far as Malware written to infect a Linux system.

Ask yourself this Windows users, I, Chips, have nothing to sell you, Linux is mostly free. But these posters here that tell you how secure that Windows is, heck, they could even be paid posters from M$ for all anyone knows. We even known of one of these posters, who just posts the most PRO-M$ stuff to get free laptops from M$. And you can guess who that is.

www.distrowatch.com download a free linux cd today, and enjoy computing on the internet, free of windows malware.

@ Marco, CC, and Gerardo:

Thanks for the suggestions and advice. I've already forwarded the information.

I'd never heard about Zarafa before, so thanks for that link.

It will be some time before any decisions must be made, so I guess that's it for now.

Thanks for the help.

@CC Torment and Diamond Dave:

Re: IT AIN'T FREE.

From: www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html

"Free software" is a matter of liberty, not price. To understand the concept, you should think of "free" as in "free speech," not as in "free beer."

Free software is a matter of the users' freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software. More precisely, it refers to four kinds of freedom, for the users of the software:

* The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0).
* The freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your needs (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
* The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor (freedom 2).
* The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements (and modified versions in general) to the public, so that the whole community benefits (freedom 3). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.

A program is free software if users have all of these freedoms. Thus, you should be free to redistribute copies, either with or without modifications, either gratis or charging a fee for distribution, to anyone anywhere. Being free to do these things means (among other things) that you do not have to ask or pay for permission.
-----
It continues a bit more. It's an eye-opening read, full of the richness and beauty of some of the best of human thought and vision. (Unless Andre has copyrighted that kind of talk...)

Re: "Ownership has it's [sic] priveliges. [sic]"

The statement is "Ownership has its privileges".

You might want to learn how to spell so your writings take on a hint of intelligent thought instead of looking as they came from a deranged lunatic.

Just a suggestion...

@CC.Torment :

"If a product doesn't work right. Needs an inordinante amount of configuration or support... or specialized expertise to support.....

IT AIN'T FREE."

True very true. That's more to the point of small businesses using a hosted mail service instead of your own inhouse brew. It applies to all products, free, open source, paid for or closed source. I don't think Microsoft is going to send someone down for free to setup anything.

"As for hosted services remember this. Ownership has it's priveliges. When your Mail solution isn't working, or you need integration with varying products and services, is an outside host for a free Mail solution going to be responsive to your support needs?"

I ask you this: is your paid Mail solution going to be responsive to your support needs? After all Microsoft already sold you Exchange Server and I'm sure there's no return/refund policy.

I have yet to have a friend or acquaintance tell me of a case when they got a call from Microsoft saying "We just noticed your Exchange Server went down, we're sending a repair team right now." I haven't heard of a case like this. Maybe you have, I don't know.

On the other hand Google makes money out of ads shown in those free accounts. It isn't a sell and forget thing for them. If the system goes down or starts getting a bad reputation they lose money.

So yes there are hidden costs everywhere. But don't think that paying automatically entitles you to more support. You'll probably need to purchase a support policy or some extra service with added cost on top of the license costs.

Gerardo Tasistro :

I ask you this: is your paid Mail solution going to be responsive to your support needs? After all Microsoft already sold you Exchange Server and I'm sure there's no return/refund policy.
_______________________________________

Gerardo I am the support.

I don't need a return policy becuase I've built a highly available system that can take a hit. My servers have continous data protection and the whole infrastructure can be restored in virtual space in minutes if It blows up. I can restore the entire exchange organization to one hour ago, one day ago, one week ago, in less than an hour.

I can recover an entire mailstore, a mailbox, a single message without my users ever noticing it. Did we spend some money for such a solution? Ya damn skippy we did. But E-mail is a critical business need.

As for "support costs" That basically comes down to my salary and hardware support for our SAN. Microsoft doesn't require you to pay them monthly fees for support. If something breaks that you can't fix (will never happen) You call them at a rate of 100 bucks a support call. And if your Mail is down... the fee is waived.

My users can come to me and gain access to mail that was archived 5 years ago. I can restore mailboxes from users who were deleted from the directory. Lawsuit? I can pull up messages to support our case from 5 years ago and search for that data on the fly. Some "Free" solution isn't going to give me that functionality. And If it breaks my company doesn't have to sit around with it's thumb up it's ass waiting for outside support. And When I leave the company they'll have a widely supported, stable, redundant infrastructure that they can easily find admins for.

You get what you pay for.

And I'm wondering.... How would you centrally adminster something like G-Mail? How do you protect the content you users send to customers. How do you protect your customers identities?

We have content protection software that can recognize credit card numbers, phone numbers, membership numbers, Social Security Numbers, and force encryption on any message containing them. I wonder how an outsourced solution with fair with those requirements. Especially a halfbaked solution like G-Mail.

Diamond Dave Said:

I figured in this day and age, most so-called IT people who claim on their soapbox that they know a thing or two about "things" would make a critical error such as everyone's buddy, Chumps into assuming this as you pointed out.
____________________________________
Chippy has a penguin chipping away at his brain.

He can't see that any such move would crush Apple or set it back severly.

Apple is more than just cute Devices, it's an Ecosystem. The LAST thing I want is to have apple gutting it's high standards for quality and performance to compete with some jerkwater clones that won't run it's OS as well as Mac hardware. Sadly if this happens Apple will be partly to blame because they made it possible by porting to the x86 standard. Faster than you could say "it boot's windows" there were hacked x86 boxes running OSX. And then along comes Psystar. They won't be the last either.

Mail is mostly free outside of the M$ world. Is there any real need to centrally administator email? The big reason to do so is because email contains so many windows malware that will attack windows computers. Now with a non windows system, alternative, wouldn't just plain old free web based email work better and far cheaper, without any need to pay for service or the software.

Those who have a vested interest in selling you software, will always find a reason for you to part with your money.

CC.Torment says:

"We have content protection software that can recognize credit card numbers, phone numbers, membership numbers, Social Security Numbers, and force encryption on any message containing them."
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And can I guess, its Micro$oft software, LOL. But I am curious, by what you mean as "We?" Is the "we" mean you work for or are supported by M$ in some way beyond free computers? Does is mean you are a salesman for M$ software in general?

Do you not have any shame Andre?

Whoa. Even I gotta say, back off just a bit, Chips. Just from a quick read, it sounded like Torment had a few good points there.

(That doesn't mean that I'm suddenly Exchange's biggest fan, but he brought up some features that I think should be considered while looking around)

Re: "Especially a halfbaked solution like G-Mail."

That "half-baked" solution like Gmail (no hyphen, by the by) looks several hundred million times richer and more functional from Firefox on Linux, Windows, and Mac than OWA does from those same clients.

The funny thing is, even OWA from within the native IE client doesn't support proper spell checking, while Firefox's superb built-in spell-checking works fine via pretty Gmail and ugly OWA. Maybe that's why the most passionate of the Microsoft fans write posts with the spelling of a mentally retarded chimpanzee.

I'll gladly take the half-baked Gmail and Firefox over the raw sewage that is IE and OWA to Exchange. Yeah, Exchange is everywhere. It's great "stuff" for sure, as the billions of disease-spreading flies can heartily attest.

Will :
Whoa. Even I gotta say, back off just a bit, Chips. Just from a quick read, it sounded like Torment had a few good points there.
----------------------------------------------------
And so did I make some points, without any monetary gain I might add. Will, I know you don't post as often as a lot, and I value you posts, but either way. I stand behind what I say. My guess, you are impersonated, but either way, does it really matter.

I have been using some type of web based email since windows 3.1, and its all good, without paying Micro$oft.

By the way, I recognize that the better Exchange experience is from Outlook, not OWA. But that requires getting into the VPN, at which time my Linux box with Thunderbird and IMAP4 gives me a much richer email experience.

And one that doesn't include viruses, or dire warnings about "Attachments may harm your computer" (even if I was the one that sent the attachment, for heaven's sake. Can't the vaunted Exchange figure that one out???).

But no, I don't expect the billions of flies to care.

Hello Joe Willcox,

The M$ Trolls/$hills are at it again I fear, and you need to delete some posts here.

They have no ethics or morals.

Will:

Don't sweat what chumps said Will.

I mostly ignore what that mouth breathing moron has to say. Him and Philstupid.

They're so full of hate for everything Microsoft that logic, or best practices for computing can't touch them through the haze.

You on the other hand strike me as the kinda guy who goes for what works no matter what the source. You're not bashing exchange, you're simply looking for a solution that serves your needs. I can respect that. The tools we used to secure our messaging infrastructure would work with just about any SMTP messaging system. Just not an outsourced one.

And the questions I posed are ones that any responsible company that values data integrity should be asking.

But hey... I'm just a $Hill for MS. I mean I have to be right? How dare I say they actually bring value to the enterprise. It's insanity.

In any case keep us posted on what your company does ultimately decide to do for it's messaging services. I'm curious.

Chips B Malroy :
Hello Joe Willcox,

The M$ Trolls/$hills are at it again I fear, and you need to delete some posts here.

They have no ethics or morals.
_______________________________________

That's right Joe Do what the fascist tells you to do. Afterall we only want one world view reflected here.

So much for freedom of choice. That is if you choose something that isn't run on a *.nix kernel.

Ridiculous.

@CC.Torment, you keep driving my point. The company you worked for paid for the software license and then paid to have a robust solution implemented and then keeps paying to keep it going.

In other words the license costs did not cover a turn key solution. Work had to be done to get it up to speed and then some to keep it running.

It sounds like a really good and robust solution, but not everyone needs that. Not all businesses need that level of service.

For many the half baked GMail solution is all they really need. If on top of that it is offered for free, why not use it? It certainly doesn't fit you or your company's needs, but that doesn't mean it doesn't fit others.

I noticed none of those trolls attempted to debate those links to the viruses and malware attacking Linux -- Did you all notice that?

Not Chumps, Not Gimplin, or their parrot sidekick?

Yeah, Linux or for that matter, any OS, system alive cannot be bullet-proof. Give people time, cause, and motivation, and even your Linux OS fails... Truth be told.

Anyway, for those who want a broader horizon of what is really going on out there.

Oh, and chumps, here's a Kleenex for your bitter tears.

@Diamond Dave, did you actually read the links you just googled? The first one regarding the document... ehhh ahhh look here:

Publisher MicroWorld Technologies File Format PDF
Date Published April 2004 Downloads 65

65 downloads since 2004. That's an amazing 13 downloads per year. Very relevant indeed.

Regarding the second one. Did you read the closing lines?

"Paul Ferris is a husband, father and Linux professional with over 15 years of Unix and over 10 years of experience with Linux. His opinions are his and his alone. He reminds you that while security is no laughing matter, that doesn't mean that you can't have some fun with it after all... "

The whole article is a joke and you posted it as a serious matter.

Gerardo Tasistro :

Wow Gerardo you just stumbled onto a paradigm here.

It takes money.... to make.... money.

Amazing that.

@C.C. Torment, once again we agree. The more money you save from spending on software with superfluous features the more money you have to make money.

@Gerardo Tasistro

Superfluous?

Nope we don't agree. What you deem superfluous in YOUR arena might be an absolute need in mine.

I never said G-Mail wouldn't fit YOUR needs, but it sure as HELL won't meet ours.

I'm starting to see that none of you guys really work in an enterprise level I.T. department.

Manage 650 mailboxes, supporting unified messaging, mobile devices, resource scheduling, user rights management, shared mailboxes content protection, Anti-Spam, support for external business partners, integration with CRM, sharepoint, project management tools..... with G-mail? GTFOH. Oh and while you're at it do all that with G-mail while complying with hundreds of corporate compliance rules. It's laughable on the very face of it.

I'm not saying every small consulting firm should run out and buy exchange. But I've set up exchange on SBS servers for companies on a tight budget and it's done fine by them, and actually meets their needs without requiring a ton of support or incurring a lot of down time. I know that's hard to believe for you dudes who not only drank the Koolaid, but inject it into your veins.

Oh and one last note. If I were running a business I would NOT but my companies E-mail system on G-Mail. If it were hosted, the hosting company would have to allow someone from my company some measure of administrative control of user accounts and E-mail flow.

That's me though.

@CC.Torment,

"Nope we don't agree. What you deem superfluous in YOUR arena might be an absolute need in mine."

Ah! But we do agree! That's what I've been trying to convey all along. Not everyone has big IT department needs and not everybody has hundreds of corporate compliance rules.

"I'm starting to see that none of you guys really work in an enterprise level I.T. department."

In my case I was clear from my first post to you that I did not work IN an enterprise level IT department. I might at times work WITH, but in that case they usually have their email covered. So for us there is no real business to be made in offering corporate email solutions. We're oriented towards application development and problem solving through software and system integration.

For us email is a means to an end not the end in itself. We don't make money out of supplying an email solution. If a client needs an email solution to support his daily operation we recommend something like GMail hosted email because it works well, has an easy to use administrative tool for the domain and includes malware protection. He can of course if he wishes do it himself or host his email on his own server.

Once again that's not our business, but I can tell you that when we have used it it has worked like a charm. I also understand Microsoft has released a similar service based around Exchange so it could be an option to use too. Not for you, I mean for us.

Diamond, if youd care to check my twitter (since you seem to be really disapointed that I didnt respond) you would have seen ive been busy with work, and only had time for a fleeting visit here.
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Dispite you still feel the need to make your case with childish name calling, ill humor you, only because i believe youll be disapointed if I dont.
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Linux exploit? well duh, its a human made system, its exploitable, that doesnt change the fact that in terms of being secure its streets ahead of a windows platform. (Imo) the discussioin point i was making was that another armed service had fallen victim to a Windows exploit. If you want to justify that exploit by highlighting one of the few issues of Linux, then fine. i must be back off to my work, but ill look forward to reading your latest bout of namecalling when i return later.

@Goblin:

Where Andre's sock puppets fail with there message about Linux exploits is that they will not tell how many Malware is in the wild for Linux. 30, 20, 10, or less than 5? And these, most likely can be protected against by running as a limited user in Linux, which is the default setup in the vast majority of Linux Distro's. Most likely any Malware is already patched as well in Linux as opposed to Windows which has to patch every month due to the huge volume of Windows Malware. As opposed to One Million plus actual Malware programs written to infect Windows users computers.

More on Windows Malware pain:

Is Windows to Blame for Cracking of Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)?

http://boycottnovell.com/2009/02/11/federal-aviation-administration-cracked/

"SEVERAL MONTHS AGO we wrote about the disasters which the FAA had been experiencing, probably due to its reckless choice of Microsoft Windows. Now we’re witnessing planes that are being grounded due to similar problems (Microsoft denies this). But it may all be just be ’small potatoes’ compared to a crack of this scale, which the Associated Press wrongly characterises as “hacking”.

"Hackers broke into the Federal Aviation Administration’s computer system last week, accessing the names and Social Security numbers of 45,000 employees and retirees.""

It may help to recall Unix co-author Dennis Ritchie's famous quote, "Unix is simple. It just takes a genius to understand its simplicity."

Unix was created long before Windows or even DOS was even a gleam in Bill Gates' eye. Microsoft didn't invent computing; it drastically reduced the price of computing. For that, I'm very grateful.

I wrote my own multi-threaded microkernel operating system in 1979. Some ideas were based on a talk on micorkernels given by a lady who visited us from Carnegie Melon.

A few years after, I stumbled across the July/August 1978 edition of the Bell Labs Technical Journal in which C and Unix and the Bourne shell were introduced (among other topics). It was a eye-opening experience. The amazing simplicity and elegance of Unix enabled highly complex systems to be easily and reliably constructed. I lamented, and still lament, that I didn't read this until after I had written my own multi-threaded operating system. While I had the function and reliability down pat, the elegant simplicity left a little to be desired. But life's about learning...

When I was introduced to the first IBM PC running Microsoft DOS, the technical inferiority of DOS was very distasteful to me, even as its marketing influence over falling hardware prices was highly attractive to me.

When the fragile Windows 3.0 was in widespread use (sometime near the release of 3.1) and the even-more-fragile OS/2 was in development (and la-la land, but that's another story), I was introduced to AIX PS/2 running on a PC. Finally, I was able to get hands-on experience with the ideas and elegance that I read about in that Bell Labs Technical Journal so many years before.

OS/2 never was compelling to me. Sure, it was more reliable than Windows 3.1, but it wasn't nearly as reliable as Unix. And sure, it ran more popular desktop applications than Unix, but not nearly as many as run by Windows 3.1. It seemed stuck in a no-man's land, not good enough to be in the popular camp, and not reliable enough to be in the server camp. It lived up to its name: OS/2 truly was a Half-OS operating system.

My jobs have consisted almost entirely of low-level infrastructure, custom databases, and the other stuff that no one sees or notices. People notice a house's shape, color, fancy windows, pretty roof. But nobody notices the foundation unless it develops a crack. All blame but little reward... Except for steady and continued employment. ;-)

I even went a year using a Unix server as my desktop. Windows 95, well established by that time, was the dominant desktop, so I was something of a rebel. But people were nice enough to print WordPro (Lotus) and MS Word documents for me; I was nice enough to convert my LaTeX/Xfig documents to PDF. All in all, it was a fun experiment and quite a learning experience.

By using a commercial Unix, I was left with disdain over the reliability of Windows 95 (though I used Windows 3.1, 95, ME, and now XP at home for the application support they provide). I also dismissed Linux as an interesting and promising experiment but not a battle-hardened platform worthy of my time and effort.

But in 1995, I migated off of my commercial Unix desktop to a PC running Fedora Core 3. Then Core 5. Then Ubuntu 7.10 and now 8.04.

Yes, XP has finally reached maturity and can be a compelling desktop and even server (I suppose, as I've never tried it that way). And sure, Vista is a leap forward, Windows 7 is a compelling enhancement to Vista.

But you name-callers and passionate Microsoft supporters must understand: I've been doing this job (in many forms for different companies) for a few months shy of 30 years. I've waited and waited and waited and waited and waited for DOS to finally turn into something worthy of being called a rock-solid foundation. And during that wait, I've discovered platforms that are more compelling to me. I have more patience than many people (believe it or not), but I don't have infinite patience, and I got tired of waiting for Microsoft to finally get it right. If Windows XP was out when OS/2 was struggling, I believe that I would have jumped on the Microsoft bandwagon and never looked back. But NT was late, it wasn't fast enough, and XP was way too late for me.

For others without the long history of this old fart, I do understand your views and passions. Really, I do. But I ran out of patience long, long ago. And for having more patience than most but still not having enough to be infinite, I do NOT apologize.

Philosopher says:
"I wrote my own multi-threaded microkernel operating system in 1979. Some ideas were based on a talk on micorkernels given by a lady who visited us from Carnegie Melon."
----------------------------------------------------
Just a wide guess, was it based on Mach?
----------------------------------------------------
"Microsoft didn't invent computing; it drastically reduced the price of computing. For that, I'm very grateful."
----------------------------------------------------
Actually I would give credit for that to the backward engineering of IBM computers, which lead to the cloning of 100% IBM compatible computers. Had Digital Research DRDOS (cpm and DRDOS) been licensed by IBM as the desktop DOS back in those days, I doubt that an OS would cost anymore than MS, plus the software would have been better, most likely.

The next reduction in the price of computing is an OS as a commodity. An OS price point will be under considerable stress to either reduce its price, make it free, or use advertising in the OS to generate income. With Seven Starter Edition, I believe we are starting to see this trend.

Now OS/2 cost about 3 times as much as Windows 95 did at the time, but so does XP Pro and most Vista/Seven versions. Correct me, but I think 95 only cost something like $79 when it came out. I liked OS/2, but IBM shot itself in the foot so many many times with it. There was only about approximately 200 viruses for OS/2, most floppy based too, even though at one point OS/2 Warp v3 had 6% of the desktop market. Someday I will have to setup OS/2 v4 up in a VM.

Mach? No. It was for the Series/1 minicomputer. This was 1979, after all! But, I wouldn't be surprised if the talk I heard was based on ideas that eventually went into Mach.

I never really liked OS/2 because I was already familiar and comfortable with Unix, and was using Windows 3.1 at home to run CorelDRAW and MS Word 2.0 (the last version of Word that I thought was worth the trouble to use). OS/2 couldn't run Windows programs all that easily, and it couldn't match the reliability and design of Unix. The kernel was nice, but the filesystem was a dog and PM was a horrifically buggy thing, its single input queue causing lock-ups far too easily.

But I did use OS/2 for quite a while. Tried to run CorelDRAW for OS/2 but it was old and not that compelling. I installed Emacs and LaTex for coding and documentation, and used PMDraw (an internal tool only; too bad, it was great) for pictorial documentation.

Ah, the memories of an old fart! Thanks for letting me entertain myself with them!!!

Google Sync looks like a good start, but I think this entire process needs to be managed a little better. Try using mTools, http://mtools.guiang.net. I think they're on the right track with their interface.

I see no mention of Blackberry in all this conversation. Why is that?

It is more obvious than ever that I must turn in my BB Curve to get the iPhone. Who would have thought that Apple would be a leader in mobile BIZ apps.? Not me.

Mike O'Neil
CEO, Integrated Alliances
www.IntegratedAlliances.com