Complete Linux office package on the way
In SME (Small to Medium Enterprises / Businesses) you have one option if you want to fully utilise the power of Microsoft Office. Shared contacts and calendars are incredibly useful when you have more than 1 computer that needs to be able to access global contacts (such as company clients) or shared calendars, allowing you to have other staff members make appointments, reminders and more. The only option is to use a Microsoft Server. Like a Windows PC, you pay a license fee to Microsoft, the machine can crash and is reliable as a Chinese taxi. With Windows Server, you pay even more for a license! When it’s doing very, very little! Especially when you use Linux for everything else.
There are certain work-arounds you can do to try and emulate the Microsoft server, but nothing that does it nicely. The only reason I don’t use great software like Thunderbird for my email client (as apposed to Outlook) , is becasue it has no calendar funcationality nor the groupware. Thunderbird also doesn’t talk to my iPhone / PDAs / Mobile Phone..
Just on the horizon there may be a solution;
Software developer Unison has launched what it claims is the world’s first fully-unified communications suite based on Linux.
Announced at CeBIT, the suite (also simply called Unison) combines IP telephony, e-mail and instant messaging with diary, address book and presence capabilities, all in a single Linux server. It is available free as a public beta.
