Exchanging Exchange for OpenSource

Most companies looking at corporate email today overlook the various free email servers available on the internet today.

Of course there is the famous sendmail but many newer mail servers have come into light with feature sets that rival if not outright put Exchange to shame. Enterprises are looking more and more to enabling users on their PDAs, giving WIKI like functions in Email, RSS Feeds in their email client, and of course the much valued Global Access List. (Shared Email lists)

I found this website on the wiki samba site detailing some of the email servers one might push onto a linux installation and serve email to open source clients or closed clients like Outlook.

http://wiki.samba.org/index.php/Exchange_Server_Alternatives

Looking over the list, many do not have direct Ubuntu support. As Ubuntu makes a sprint into the Enterprise, it is important that we understand that some companies love their Office and even though it might be a hard sell to these users for a Ubuntu desktop sporting your favorite email client, we can steal market share in the server arena. With open source email servers now offering direct connectors to Outlook, it makes a shift to a Ubuntu run data center and user environment so much easier.

One year you can replace the Exchange server, next year move to Open Office and Evolution, etc. If anyone would like to take on building a Ubuntu Exchange killer, send me a email and we could spend some time exchanging Exchange for something more penguin friendly.