How do you see Evolution being able to replace Outlook in your organization? I see some fundamental flaws:
No equiv of MS Exchange
No real "NT Domain" type of user cohesion/administration
Linux is too hard for some people to administer in it's current state, and most people don't want to take the time to learn when they already know something that puts bread on the table
Hey, if I'm a consultant (which I'm not), I really want to do is:
Get the customers buisness requirements
Spend only as much time as necessary doing the design specs
Tell the customer that there are thousands of people who can implement, support and administer their computer systems with this design
Collect my money, shake hands, and have a happy customer
Repeat the above steps as frequently as I can
I don't know much about NIS (face it, sun isn't getting rich in desktop computers), but I've heard that it may be riddled with security vulnerabilities, and I don't know of any other solution for Linux in a corporate "desktop" environment (Nor do I think there is a very decent solution, because I'd of heard about it by now unless it was a secret.). I can't see each computer needing to have an administrator go to each machine individually when a new user will be added. It just doesn't make any business sense, and nobody in the Linux movement seems to notice this gigantic "black hole". I get so p*ssed off when I think about samba (and I've used samba, and I respect what the people are doing). Why do we insist on reverse engineering a microsoft product??? I don't know any linux users that set up a linux only network and use samba to do file and print sharing, I mean, it doesn't make sense to. Why can't we create our OWN damn system of file and print sharing and then write drivers for other operating systems (Like the previously very successful Novell)? It seems totally ass backwards to me to go through all of the reverse engineering when we could set the standards, design the system with features that we want, and then set the defacto for all other operating systems. Am I really stupid and missing something huge? Why not build the client and server to Open Source specifications? Wouldn't this be a MUCH better idea?
I Cannot see Linux (READ: EVO) taking over the desktop of a corporation until some really basic sound business features are added to Linux.
I am sorry to say these things. But if you talk with most sane technology managers I think they are would say the same things.
PS - I know very little c code (not enough to be very effective unless you want to do really simple things), but I have a SUN SPARC 20 Workstation with dual processors and a nice monitor that I'd be willing to donate to someone who will advance the ability of Linux to penetrate the damn corporate desktop.
PS - IBM,SGI,Redhat,Mandrake,Caldera,Dell, and Sun, think about what Microsoft does RIGHT on the desktop and not only what they do wrong. If Linux only fixes what is wrong, they (MS) still have all that is right....
PS - Ximian and Eazel, I want you to know that even though I am a free software freak, I would pay you for your services. Hopefully I will buy them because they really kick ass. Otherwise I will buy them so you can work on making them kick ass.
-----Original Message-----
From: Tom Cooper [mailto:tom_cooper bigfoot com]
Sent: Friday, January 19, 2001 3:50 PM
To: Dan B. Mann
Cc: evolution ximian com
Subject: Re: [Evolution] Advice
"Dan B. Mann" wrote:
>
> I heard a bit about Outlook
> 10, and I think it will work better than 97 and 2000, but I don't know
I'm sure it will be better, but perhaps not compellingly so. I think
that the major improvements may have been delayed until a later version
of Outlook.
>
> No matter what happens to the network connection between client and
> server, DO NOT Let EVO HANG FOR anything(this give people a chance to
> save their work, even if they end up having to restart EVO)
Sure, but this is really more of an OS problem anyway. Windows is too
dependent on it's network connection to keep functioning. In Linux this
is rarely as much of a concern.
>
> Figure out how to implement an advanced editor that administrative &
My guess (not a coder, just a techie talking) is that this shouldn't be
too hard, given the bonobo layer - one should be able to choose the
application of one's choice - AbiWord, GXEdit, Vim, Emacs, ad nauseum -
as long as the link is there through bonobo.
>
> It's gotta have some really cool features for mobile computing devices
This should be interesting to see.
>
> It's gotta work at least more than outlook :-)
How hard can that be?
>
> Consider things like global address books, even though they are server
This is a critical function for my enterprise. We selected the full
outlook client for all users because OE didn't provide the GAL
functionality that we wanted.
Although, access to the equivalent of a GAL should be available via LDAP
to a directory service. I would think that this would not be too hard
to code (in fact it may already be there.)
>
> Oh yeah, you better be able to type in a partial name
FWIW - that's a 'nice to have'
>
> When GNOME matures, and we have settled on a standard for our word
> processor, I should be able to click "Send To" and EVO knows what to
> do
It really shouldn't matter - the issue will be whether the component
knows about bonobo. I would hope that Abiword would launch the
appropriate Gnome mailer if I wanted to send a document directly from
Abiword.
>
> And last but not least, someday be able to have an "Out of the Office
> Assistant" type do dad
Another nice to have. It should be smart enough to send replies only
once to each sender, and I should be able to tell it to send out of the
office messages to people who are in my domain, but not to other
domains.
I'm excited about this project, and have been VERY interested in this
thread......
Regards,
Tom Cooper
--
Standard disclaimer applies:
This message represents the opinions of the
author, and not necessarily those of any
organization to which he may be related.