Re: [Evolution] Competing with Microsoft

["Chris Worley" <worleys gmail com>]

On Jan 17, 2008 1:07 PM, Rob Cambra <rcambra amesbury com> wrote:
<snip>
> I want Linux and Evolution to succeed but in order to do that it
> MUST directly compete with Outlook in an Exchange environment
> and in my view it isn't there yet.  We're really talking about
> competition here.  In a corporate environment, working fairly well
> is not good enough.  The expectation of end users (customers)
> is that it work as well or better.  We rolled out a 25 user pilot with
> Ubuntu 7.10 and Evo and so far the feedback is that Evo hangs
> and crashes a lot more than OLK.
<snip>
> ...  As a former code jockey, ...

...you should easily realize that any significant piece of code is
nearly impossible to exactly emulate from scratch.  The IBM BIOS took
about 5 years (mostly because it was incredibly simple and it couldn't
evolve), throwing IBM out of the PC equation and handing MS the golden
ring.  DOS took about 15 years to emulate, but, MS quickly replied by
removing DOS from the equation and making WinDoh's stand-alone.

You not only have to emulate what the target application does, you
have to exactly emulate it's chaotic and undocumented behaviors...
this isn't going to happen in any sort of realistic timeframe, and
even if it could, MS just needs to change the behavior (The infamous
MS mantra of: "It doesn't ship until <whichever app is trying to
compete> is broken")... so you're left to forever chase the tail of an
application you have little chance of exactly emulating anyway.  That
is the curse of software.

Rather than emulate, take advantage of Evolution's features that
Outlook can't compete with.

For example, I POP (fetchmail) my email from the Exchange server to a
local mailbox, and have multiple GB's of inbox and sent email... which
Evolution, with more powerful queries, can search through incredibly
faster and more exactingly[sp?] than Outlook.  My email is a branch of
my memory, and being able to search through it efficiently is
incredibly important to me and my job.  I used Outlook for two years,
and it can't compete.

Furthermore, Outlook really screws-up text-based email.  It line-wraps
where you need it not to (even if the incoming email doesn't line
wrap, Outlook line-wraps for the reader, making a lot of what I need
to do unintelligible to Outlook users).

Add to that Outlook's enforced "Top Post" (read backwards) style
(where it's very hard to interlace questions in emails w/ responses,
or even bottom post), Outlook becomes useless for meaningful email
conversations (that you don't have to read backwards).

So, don't look on Evolutions inability to exactly emulate Outlook,
because it's never going to happen: look at how Evolution excels
beyond Outlooks capabilities as a justification for switching.

Chris