Groupware program - a server to ?

[Daniel Persson <daniel abonet se>]

Hi all,

Eventually this belongs on the gnome-mailer list but i tought that a quick
post on this list would be better :) 

(Forgive my ignorance)

I work primarly as a consultant and are therefor no programmer(however i try
program a little) so this post may be plain stupid or whatever.

i have been reading the mails about the new mailer and havent seen any post
of making the mail client a part of a bigger soultion.

When customers buy a program like Microsoft Exchange etc there are some
primary things they want.(And this is something that they ALL want)

- Shared adresslists - This is probobly the most important
- Shared calendars   - They want to be able to know what person b and person
a are
- Shared contacts	   - They want have a contact database with all
sorts of different contactinfo
- Shared folders 	   - Like the Microsoft Exchange folders, to store
documents etc

Their biggest demand is mostly about beeing able to SHARE the information in
the groupware system.

Also, one thing they more and more want is that the travelling people
(salesmen etc) want to be able to surf in and get all this info trough a
webinterface.
(Like Outlook Webaccess or HP Openmail)

So basically my question is, will the new gnome-mailer system make any of
this possible ?

Would a Microsoft Exhange/HP Openmail kinda soulution be a too big task ?

Would it be possible to build a server that uses OpenLdap and other internet
standard protocols for its store and then build clients (like gnome-mailer,
magellan etc) that uses it ?

I belive that a nice written GPLD groupware system will take the world by
storm - it's also my belive the wonderful Gnomehackers are the right men for
the job :)

BTW Am i waaaay off in this post ???

Regards
Daniel Persson

http://www.abonet.se  <---  Abonet Data AB
http://wlug.westbo.se   <--- Westbo Linux User Group
http://wlug.westbo.se/gnome  <--- Svensk website om GNOME