That is a valid consideration but many of our Mac users are now requiring
Windows on their Intel Mac computers and so the problem for them could be
worked around. AD is also a valid objection and I'm not sure that an
adequate work around could be found for that. The benefits or trying to
find one, however, are quite substantial. I have to believe that MSU is a
significantly less efficient organization by virtue of not having a
centralized calendaring system.
-----Original Message-----
From: Adam McDougall [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Monday, October 15, 2007 12:00 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [MSUNAG] MSUMAIL: Re: [MSUNAG] University-wide messaging and
calendar system
OWA is great if all of your users are willing to use Windows. OWA-lite
is available on non-IE but lacks many features (such as detailed calendar
permission setting) if the client cannot use IE. Yes, I do have users
I cannot dissapoint by providing them with a solution that is only complete
when using Windows clients.
On Mon, Oct 15, 2007 at 11:48:12AM -0400, Jon Galbreath wrote:
I think for once I have to totally agree with you on this one, Laurence.
I?ve
always been pleased with Exchange and especially with the OWA and OMA
feature
sets. And frankly, people wouldn?t run the software if it was crap. Look
at
all the large corporations that run Exchange for hundreds of thousands of
users. If it couldn?t perform, they wouldn?t use it. Exchange certainly
is
not cheap, but as you said, you get what you pay for.
From: MSU Network Administrators Group [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
Behalf
Of Laurence Bates
Sent: Monday, October 15, 2007 11:23 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [MSUNAG] University-wide messaging and calendar system
I?m not clear what the negatives are for Exchange. It scales well, has
great
support from both Microsoft and a host of other companies, it has the best
web
client that I am aware of, supports more current mobile devices and can be
expected to support any significant future devices capable of email and
calendaring. Sure it costs money but so do most good systems. My sense
is
that you tend to get what you pay for in both cars and software.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
---
From: Jon Galbreath [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Monday, October 15, 2007 10:13 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [MSUNAG] University-wide messaging and calendar system
Zimbra?s a pretty good alternative to Exchange for a collaboration suite.
My
only thought on it is: what?s going to happen to it now that it?s been
purchased by Yahoo?
From: MSU Network Administrators Group [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
Behalf
Of Troy Murray
Sent: Monday, October 15, 2007 9:46 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [MSUNAG] University-wide messaging and calendar system
I enjoyed attending the MSU IT Exchange last Friday to discuss the
technology
direction and concerns for the University as well as to share ideas on
what
might be the best solutions.
In particular the topic Mr Davis discussed on the current University email
system and the possible directions that could be taken with it ("stay the
course", replace, upgrade, discontinue, etc) and the thoughts and feelings
of
the audience. I can see their are some passionate individuals about this
topic.
While I feel the mail system could be better with updates, like a
refreshed web
interface, I feel there is a much greater need for a University-wide
calendar
system. I seem to remember Mr Gift commenting on how this topic can be
very
sensitive with individuals and that one of the biggest challenges with it
is
personal control to who can access your calendar and what they can see or
do.
Personally I've been looking into the Zimbra Collaboration Suite (http://
www.zimbra.com/products/) which seems to provide a fully featured
messaging,
calendaring, contact management package. The system can be run in a
hosted
enviroment or purchased and run at the University level on our own
servers.
For those unfamiliar with Zimbra, it provides messaging using all of the
standard protocols (POP3, IMAP and SMTP with or without SSL) so
stand-alone
programs like Microsoft Outlook, Mozilla Thunderbird, Eudora or Apple
Mail.app
would work with it. In addition a fancy AJAX webmail interface is
provided, as
well as a non-fancy HTML one, and a very nice mobile interface for those
wishing to access the system that way.
Zimbra also provides a calendar to each user and allows the user to
control
access to it from other users. With permissions set users can even
"subscribe"
to anothers calendar using the iCal standard protocol with programs like
Apple's iCal or Mozilla Sunbird (Windows, Linux, Mac) and Microsoft
Outlook
2007 or 2003 with a plug-in.
One advantage I see with this system is that users of Outlook can still
maintain their calendar, contacts and mail through Outlook, like they do
now,
and all of that will be syncronized with the Zimbra server. It even
supports
Outlook in cached mode. Those of us with Macs can use Mail.app, iCal and
Address book and this will sync (using iSync) to the server as well.
There are a number of other features that I haven't looked at yet, such as
instant messaging, creating documents and custom components for VOIP or
mapping.
I see on their web site that they are having some webinars about campus
wide
messaging using Zimbra, and comparing it to what Google is offering
(http://
www.zimbra.com/about/webinars.html). I'm curious, has anyone at the
"University level" looked at Zimbra as a possible replacement for the
current
messaging system? Is anyone on campus running Zimbra? If so, what has
been
your experience with it?
Just my thoughts to try and get a discussion started on this topic.
--
Troy Murray
Informatics Specialist
Michigan State University
Biomedical Research & Informatics Center (BRIC)
100 Conrad Hall
East Lansing, MI 48824
Phone: 517-432-4248
Fax: 517-353-9420
E-mail: [log in to unmask]
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