Gavin Denby wrote:
I was reading the cnet article on the need for a mail client to push forward DESKTOP LINUX
*E-mail will be the most significant factor governing the uptake of Linux on the desktop, according to a new study. *
The Desktop Linux Client Survey 2005, released this week by the Open Source Development Labs, found that the lack of a powerful e-mail application could hinder the adoption of Linux on the desktop.
Full story here: http://news.com.com/E-mail+crucial+to+future+of+desktop+Linux/2100-7344_3-5978465.html?part=rss&tag=5978465&subj=news
What I wondered was what does an enterprise e-mail client do that's different from my thunderbird. Is it just the calender? is it notes. I have tried, and hated outlook, probably as I use just e-mail and dont like the complexity of all the other things, but what would happen in an enterprise situation.
I don't claim to be a guru or anything, but I read a similar article yesterday which said basically the same thing, and I'm inclined to think that it reflects a general lack of information in the study itself. How is Evolution not comparable to Outlook? Outlook has more features (but then it's been around a lot longer), but not /better/ features. I prefer Evolution to Outlook, and I use Outlook every day as a crucial part of my job. Outlook 2003 is a horrible application; it's unresponsive, and if you have a slow Exchange server, running any kind of large request hangs the entire desktop (possibly Windows' fault, but whatever). Evolution is easy to use, has all the needed features I can think of (group calendars being the main one), integrates better into the Gnome desktop than Outlook does into Windows, and is definitely more usable (the Gnome HIG, in my opinion, has resulted in some good UI design choices in Evo that were never made in Outlook; compare entering contacts, for example). If Evo is lacking any features that are required by most corporate clients, I don't know what they are, but I'm sure they can be added pretty easily. I don't think Thunderbird or Kontact (although I haven't used Kontact myself; and I'm going from memory in assuming that it is the email component of KDE) offer a corporate-level email client, primarily because of calendering. But the question in my mind is, so what? Even if there's only one client that's good enough, as the article implies, why should that stop Linux adoption? Can you name more than one client on Windows? Is the lack of choice on Windows preventing businesses from choosing it? Besides, depending on what you want to do, there are several other corporate-level choices for email on Linux, the names of which I /all/ forget now. I saw a demo for one fairly recently; a web-based email and calendaring application with features for organizing your mail that blew the pants off Outlook. To me, it looks like the article is focused a bit wrong. It suggests that Linux doesn't compete well in the email arena, whereas I think what the study was suggesting is that people's perception is that Linux is not quite as ready for corporate email as Windows, or that it doesn't offer anything /over/ Windows. And, no doubt many improvements can be made, and /should/ be made, as email is the number 1 app. The more edge that Linux has, the better. I can think of a number of features I'd implement in Evolution that would make corporate types ooh and aah and never want to look at Outlook again. Just my rather more spewy-than-expected thoughts. Regards, Bnonn