[ph0ust]

hi all. i was wondering if the next version of ical will be fully compatible with ms exchange's caledaring. i have several clients who all use exchange server, and while mail.app will work with exchange ical has never really been able to schedule calendar updates and availability. hopefully, this is changing given the new capabilities in ical, but i know ms is not too friendly towards industry standards.

anyone know what this will look like when leopard arrives? thanks.

[Sethro]

Thats a good question, although I dont really see any solid mention of it anywhere on the Apple site. It could be one of those features that could be implemented in other builds or maybe even in the final release. Sorry I could be of more help.

[mkral]

what about using snerdware.com's groupcal? I thought that was supposed to integrate ical with MS Exchange. (Never used it myself, but that's what I recall)

[ph0ust]

thanks for the reference to snerdware. i am checking out their software now.

i was hoping that apple's use of the caldav protocol we would see the ability to use ical with exchange, but i don't see anything about ms exchange server supporting caldav. i can't believe apple isn't able to do something to communicate with an exchange server environment (for calendaring) other than force the use of entourage

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by ph0ust 

thanks for the reference to snerdware. i am checking out their software now.

i was hoping that apple's use of the caldav protocol we would see the ability to use ical with exchange, but i don't see anything about ms exchange server supporting caldav. i can't believe apple isn't able to do something to communicate with an exchange server environment (for calendaring) other than force the use of entourage

Exchange doesn't use CalDAV. Blame Microsoft, not Apple for this one for a closed, proprietary system. Many other Groupware products have Exchange connectors, but AFAIK these are basically just reverse engineered hacks. Since Apple has decided to write their own calendar server, I wouldn't count on native iCal Exchange support.

[mpancha]

This isn't going to be helpful either, just my take on this...

why does iCal have to be able to integrate with Exchange? An option is offered, Entourage. It might not be what you want to use, but the option is available.

I'm one of those who doesn't think everything has to be open sourced, and standards exist... true. But Exchange never claimed to follow CalDav standards or any others. It follows MS's protocol, which is all it really has to do. Might not be what everyone wants, but it does work, and does its job well.

The open source movement is great, it brings forth innovation. But, when I want to find a product that performs a task, if I have to choose between an open source solution that needs tweaking, or a closed source solution that does what I want, but costs money... but doesn't cost me time to tweak to work with my system.... I'd rather pay, and have time to spend elsewhere. On the same note, if I find an open source solution, that does everything I want, and is free.... I'll use that, and if it works well after a month, they end up with a donation from me for the amount of the equivalent closed source product. At the end of the day though, whatever takes me the least amount of time, and least amount of configuration is what I want to use.

With the Exchange issues... Entourage does it, all I have to do is install it.

[ph0ust]

i wouldn't say that what you are saying is not helpful... but rather not insightful. i have entourage. yes it works well if you choose to use it (at least in most cases it works well other than not generally working for scheduling resources and other nits). in MY case, i don't want to use entourage, mail.app and ical (as i do now). ical and entourage have two separate calendars that i have to keep checking independantly. when it comes to syncing with a cell phone, getting multiple calendars from separate calendaring apps is a pain in the ass.

in my own opinion, i MUCH prefer to use more lightweight and optimized apps like those from apple. with that said, ms does not need to use open standards, nor do they need to play nice... but it is generally what EVERYONE wants. no one wants to be screwed and stuck with one choice. they may use something from ms, but it is best if it is by choice and not a lack of options. however, not only does ms not play nice with open source, they completely laugh at any standard that they perceive could erode their monopoly. this has been the case with w3c standards, java, xml, and countless others. they make theirs "better" than what every other company in the world will agree to use so that you are totally f'ed if you try to integrate with non-ms apps. this is part of the reason why they get sued so much and why their is so much animosity against them. if they just made things better and everyone chose to use them.... no harm no foul.

as i said, it is not necessarily that ms needs to let other people plug in to them using open source standards (although they should not just laugh in the face of things consumers generally desire), it is more that apple should have some sort of response to the issue. as far as apple is concerned.... lots of people are on exchange servers. no one can deny that, so it is something that should be a part of their third party integration strategy. it is incumbent on apple, if they would like to increase their foothold in the market, to get something done so that the people who use exchange, because their work makes them, can still use the preferred apple apps instead of being relegated to going back to ms for the solution.

a quick check of snerdware's groupcal looks like it will work, but i haven't tried it yet. lots of others have gotten hacks like this out. it is sort of lame that apple has no response. oh well.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by mpancha 

This isn't going to be helpful either, just my take on this...

why does iCal have to be able to integrate with Exchange? An option is offered, Entourage. It might not be what you want to use, but the option is available.

I'm one of those who doesn't think everything has to be open sourced, and standards exist... true. But Exchange never claimed to follow CalDav standards or any others. It follows MS's protocol, which is all it really has to do. Might not be what everyone wants, but it does work, and does its job well.

The open source movement is great, it brings forth innovation. But, when I want to find a product that performs a task, if I have to choose between an open source solution that needs tweaking, or a closed source solution that does what I want, but costs money... but doesn't cost me time to tweak to work with my system.... I'd rather pay, and have time to spend elsewhere. On the same note, if I find an open source solution, that does everything I want, and is free.... I'll use that, and if it works well after a month, they end up with a donation from me for the amount of the equivalent closed source product. At the end of the day though, whatever takes me the least amount of time, and least amount of configuration is what I want to use.

With the Exchange issues... Entourage does it, all I have to do is install it.

The problem with this is that no one email system can live in a vacuum. They need to co-exist with others, and communicate with other servers using communication that can be understood.

Exchange wants to be the only email environment on a LAN. It is an absolutely *pain* getting Exchange to work with other mail relays, to forward mail out of Exchange, etc. Our work environment consists of email provided by both Exchange and Cyrus, and when you send somebody a message from Exchange, regardless of what their primary email address is set to, Exchange will always try to send to an Exchange account first, even if this Exchange account is dormant.

So, my point is, while I agree with the essence of what you are saying, email systems necessitate an additional responsibility to be standards compliant at least enough to get along with other email servers. To do so, there are *standards* that need to be abided by - not Microsoft only standards, but public standards.

I'm actually more of an advocate of open standards than I am of open source software, because it absolutely sucks when we have to wrestle with this sort of crap.