Re: [Evolution] Competing with Microsoft

[Pete Biggs <pete biggs org uk>]

On Sun, 2008-01-20 at 18:16 -0600, Peter Van Lone wrote:
> On Jan 17, 2008 2:07 PM, Rob Cambra <rcambra amesbury com> wrote:
> > People sitting at desks in real companies want and demand collaboration tools such as Exchange, Lotus 
> > Domino, GroupWize, etc.  Evo better be the client side equivalent for open source and be rock solid in 
> > those environments or it goes nowhere.  What's the point if it's just for home users and enthusiasts?
>
> exactly right.

But alienating the "home users and enthusiasts" isn't going to do you
any good.  The _innovation_ for much of open source software comes from
exactly those people - the driver for corporate users is to mimic
Microsoft, which I can't believe is good for the future development of
Linux.

> EVO appears to be fine for individual users ... but in a
> corp/groupware environment, it's (poor) support of Exchange makes it a
> non-starter. I know that many posters to this list express the
> sentiment that they "resent the time EVO developers have to spend on
> Exchange support". Well, I guess it comes down to whether or not you
> want linux in general and EVO in particular to have a shot a real
> marketshare leadership ...

I work in a (semi-) corporate environment - and Evo is a perfectly
stable, capable mail client.  It has things missing that would make life
easier, but that doesn't include Exchange support - we don't use
Exchange - and, although it may seem strange to some people, not all
corporate environments do.

It saddens me to see the Evo developers chasing Microsoft's tail all the
time - it is exactly the scenario that Microsoft want: the perception
that they are the leader and everyone has to follow them.  I wish there
was some easier way into Exchange and I sincerely home that the libmapi
approach is going to provide it - although my cynicism tells me that the
mapi protocol will change every few months in order to break everything
other than MS products .  At least once that is sorted out, the Evo
developers can concentrate on other things.

P.