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IchiroBoston · Mar 4, 2004, 10:45 AM

Hi!

Does anyone know what Apple uses for their Corporate e-mail and calendar?
I cant imagine that mail.app and iCal is powerful enough for corporate use.

Im trying to find a solution for a 50+ employee company that I support (100% mac).
We need E-mail / Calendar with mobile and offline use.

Currently my options are Lotus Notes 6 (but their webmail does not support macs, it really does but you have to fool the server in thinking its a pc browser

)

Exchange...

Currently we are using first class.

Thanks!
Ichiro

gorickey · Mar 4, 2004, 10:49 AM

CommuniGate Pro

Diggory Laycock · Mar 4, 2004, 01:12 PM

Mail and iCal are clients - not servers - I'm sure they use both - apple 'eat their own dogfood' as they say in the Software Industry.

As for Servers, however, I should imagine the use Mac OS X Server to do mail - which uses open source mail servers called Cyrus and Postfix:

http://www.apple.com/server/macosx/mail_services.html

As for Calendaring, iCal does not need a "calendar server" - it allows for publishing calendars over WebDAV to a webserver - but that does not allow multiple people to edit the calendar.

CatOne · Mar 4, 2004, 01:51 PM

Originally posted by IchiroBoston:
Hi!

Does anyone know what Apple uses for their Corporate e-mail and calendar?
I cant imagine that mail.app and iCal is powerful enough for corporate use.

Im trying to find a solution for a 50+ employee company that I support (100% mac).
We need E-mail / Calendar with mobile and offline use.

Currently my options are Lotus Notes 6 (but their webmail does not support macs, it really does but you have to fool the server in thinking its a pc browser )

Exchange...

Currently we are using first class.

Thanks!
Ichiro

Meetingmaker has a group calendar solution for Macs. Works okay. Or you could look at Now up-to-date and contact.

mitchell_pgh · Mar 4, 2004, 01:59 PM

Hmmm... looks like the next version of iCal should have Rendezvous sharing/editing...

workerbee · Mar 4, 2004, 02:36 PM

I don't know about iCal, but at the Apple Show in Paris last September I talked to an Apple employee who said that they all (had to) use Mail.app, and that they were all very much looking forward to get Panther and Mail.app 1.2 installed.

IchiroBoston · Mar 4, 2004, 03:24 PM

Thanks for the input... im going to have to come up with something creative....
its so hard to use macs in the corporate world hu?

Im ALMOST ready to throw in the towel and go PC

Art Vandelay · Mar 4, 2004, 03:45 PM

Here's an article that details what Apple uses.

Thinine · Mar 4, 2004, 04:47 PM

Perhaps if you were more specific on your needs we could help you more. Instead of complaining, help us help you.

cpac · Mar 4, 2004, 05:47 PM

Yes, please be more clear about what you're looking for... (the thread title & your initial question don't suggest anything more than that you're curious what Apple uses).

DayLite is worth taking a look at - Cocoa application that uses an OpenBase database to coordinate tasks, projects, contacts, organizations, calendars, etc. in a multi-user environment (complete with different permissions for differen users, Palm sync, mail merge, etc.). It's designed for sales people (has nice features like sales funnels, etc.) but depending on what you do, may well serve your needs even outside of sales. (They also happen to have extremely responsive developers, so if you need it do something it doesn't do already, its likely they'll find a way to incorporate it.

(the only major criticism of it, as it currently stands, is its Calendar unit, which isn't yet as flexible as it should be. They know this, and the next major release will reportedly incorporate an entirely new calendar element)
----------
Also, didn't Novel announce recently they were going to do GroupWise for OS X?
And there's always Lotus Notes...

Graymalkin · Mar 4, 2004, 07:07 PM

Since you're looking at a pretty small installation you should look at OpenGroupware. OGo is a groupware system based entirely on open source software. For interoffice messaging there's Jabber which has several Mac clients available. There's even an OSX port of OGo in active development. Between Jabber and OGo you could very likely have a pretty nice groupware system using open source software.

You can then use iCal/Mail, Entourage, or the WebUI to do all of your groupwaring. The WebUI in OGo is pretty nice from what I've seen and gives you full access to the suite where individual client programs might not. OGo should be good competition for First Class. It will run on Linux and OSX which means it will likely work on a server system you've already got running. It's the cheapest and most open solution you're probably going to find. Jabber is a very nice messaging system and you've got a wide range of clients to choose from on a lot of different platforms, even J2ME capable cell phones.

ginoledesma · Mar 4, 2004, 09:50 PM

Another corporate solution would be to use collaboration software like Lotus Notes and Domino. The Lotus Notes 6.5 client is available for Mac OS X, but the Domino server software is only available for MS Windows, AIX, and Linux.

IchiroBoston · Mar 8, 2004, 10:53 AM

Thanks for all the help everyone...

So far Lotus Domino 6.5 looks like the winner for now.

I thought the statement "We need E-mail / Calendar with mobile and offline use." in my initial post was enough information. and in no way sounded like complaining...

It would be nice to see apple come out with a decent groupware server.

Ichiro

philm · Mar 8, 2004, 11:42 AM

Originally posted by mitchell_pgh:
Hmmm... looks like the next version of iCal should have Rendezvous sharing/editing...

'Should' as in 'I have evidence that it probably will have' or as in 'wouldn't it be nice if it had'...

Rendezvous editing for iCal would be great for our situtation. I'm just wondering if you have heard some news on this.

ginoledesma · Mar 8, 2004, 11:35 PM

Only complaint I have with Notes/Domino is that it really is "notes" instead of plain email. That means that email etiquette can't entirely be followed (like quoting a snippet of text and replying in chunks). You'll know what I mean when you try a demo. One thing nice with it is document linking, though, so it makes document referencing in collaboration very easy.

laxthxdude · Mar 9, 2004, 12:55 AM

I'll take a shot at this since I administer lovely NT and Exchange systems for a living...

Exchange: I simply can't recommend it because of a couple of reasons.
1) You have to run Active Directory to use it. AD is too expensive when Apple and the open source community offer OpenDirectory for 'free'.
2) You have to use Outlook. No Outlook for OS X. Entourage doesn't cut it. Entourage isn't a bad solution though for client software but Mail.app (1.2) is getting very robust - which is why I use it.
3) Too much cash when a company for 50 or so can run on open source for free.

Lotus: Too expensive and Mac support is washy.

The closest thing I've seen for an "Exchange" replacement would be the following:

OS X Server. Run Apple's Mail server. Setup IMAP4 for protocol. Setup Squirrel mail for web access. Setup iSync for syncing. That leaves one problem with Calendaring and Contact sharing. iCal is definitely a 1.0 release to me. Its solid but the feature's aren't there yet. I definitely say that Apple will indeed add rendevous support in it for the next version, but that might be as long as 10.4 which leaves about 9 months. Snerdware has a solution for this now, but I haven't used it. It looks promising though - Groupware SVR is the name of it (www.snerdware.com). It looks like it will be good but there is no ETA on it yet.

Other than - Entourage (Office 2003) will have built in sharing in it also with Rendevous support. This won't be out until July though.

If you have $$$ to spend, I'd also highly recommend Communicate's Stalker program. You can use what ever you want for client software including web access and it includes groupware for calendaring, etc.

I you want more help, just let me know. Unfortun., I'm stuck in the Exchange world...But then again it is job security...

laxthxdude · Mar 9, 2004, 01:01 AM

Oh ya,
Stalker uses OS X to run there own mail and groupware systems running their own software...
Plus if you want to do encrypted mail, you can with Mail.app and you can get free certs from Thwarte.

IchiroBoston · Mar 9, 2004, 09:42 AM

Thanks!! This information is great!

Im going to check out Communicate's Stalker... while testing domino.

Exchange is out of the question... but the web access is SO nice.

Thanks!!!
Ichiro

Originally posted by laxthxdude:
I'll take a shot at this since I administer lovely NT and Exchange systems for a living...

Exchange: I simply can't recommend it because of a couple of reasons.
1) You have to run Active Directory to use it. AD is too expensive when Apple and the open source community offer OpenDirectory for 'free'.
2) You have to use Outlook. No Outlook for OS X. Entourage doesn't cut it. Entourage isn't a bad solution though for client software but Mail.app (1.2) is getting very robust - which is why I use it.
3) Too much cash when a company for 50 or so can run on open source for free.

Lotus: Too expensive and Mac support is washy.

The closest thing I've seen for an "Exchange" replacement would be the following:

OS X Server. Run Apple's Mail server. Setup IMAP4 for protocol. Setup Squirrel mail for web access. Setup iSync for syncing. That leaves one problem with Calendaring and Contact sharing. iCal is definitely a 1.0 release to me. Its solid but the feature's aren't there yet. I definitely say that Apple will indeed add rendevous support in it for the next version, but that might be as long as 10.4 which leaves about 9 months. Snerdware has a solution for this now, but I haven't used it. It looks promising though - Groupware SVR is the name of it (www.snerdware.com). It looks like it will be good but there is no ETA on it yet.

Other than - Entourage (Office 2003) will have built in sharing in it also with Rendevous support. This won't be out until July though.

If you have $$$ to spend, I'd also highly recommend Communicate's Stalker program. You can use what ever you want for client software including web access and it includes groupware for calendaring, etc.

I you want more help, just let me know. Unfortun., I'm stuck in the Exchange world...But then again it is job security...

Truepop · Mar 9, 2004, 10:48 AM

Originally posted by workerbee:
I don't know about iCal, but at the Apple Show in Paris last September I talked to an Apple employee who said that they all (had to) use Mail.app, and that they were all very much looking forward to get Panther and Mail.app 1.2 installed.

Yeah my ex-girlfriend's father was a technical support employee at the tech center in Austin and everyone has Mail.app running and they connect using IMAP to their apple.com account and it most likely isn't that wise to have your tech support offline so maybe they don't need an offline server.

JLL · Mar 9, 2004, 11:23 AM

Originally posted by laxthxdude:
If you have $$$ to spend, I'd also highly recommend Communicate's Stalker program.

I gues you mean Stalker's CommuniGate

laxthxdude · Mar 9, 2004, 12:33 PM

hehe - sorry.
Correct. Commingate Pro is the program, made by Stalker. I was talking to tech support with them once and got them to tell me that they do indeed use it internally on OS X for all their mail. Actually if I remember correctly, I believe the guy said it was running on an old gum-drop iMac (like a 333) and it was running their entire company...

The other nice part is you can download it and get it working 100% without buying it - it just appends a trailer on all mail. But then you can get it working exactly as you need it before spending cash on it.

laxthxdude · Mar 9, 2004, 12:46 PM

Oh ya...

OpenExchange server by suse is also very nice...

www.suse.com

mdc · Mar 9, 2004, 03:15 PM

this month's issue of macworld magazine has a big review on a few email servers. you might want to check it out.

ginoledesma · Mar 9, 2004, 10:26 PM

Its probably a personal thing, but I'd go for Horde:IMP over SquirrelMail. I just find that it works better for me (looks aside, of course). Horde:Kronolith is the calendar component, although I don't know how well it suits corporate-class collaboration and scheduling since its still "under active development".

Westfoto · Mar 11, 2004, 01:22 AM

Meetingmaker looks promising

http://www.meetingmaker.com/products...er/default.cfm

It might do what you want, at least for the calendar issues.

C.J. Moof · Mar 11, 2004, 11:12 AM

I have a mixed environment of 2 dozen Mac/PC users doing calendaring on Now Up To Date. It has a number of quirks that I wish would be changed, but in all, it works reasonably well. We email using Mail.app, which also works well with a number of quirks I wish could be changed.

larkost · Mar 11, 2004, 11:30 AM

Westfoto: you obviously have never admined a meetingmaker server... the features are nice, but my experience with it was a constant headache in client bugs.

Westfoto · Mar 11, 2004, 05:30 PM

Originally posted by larkost:
Westfoto: you obviously have never admined a meetingmaker server... the features are nice, but my experience with it was a constant headache in client bugs.

No I have not. I was trying to read thought the sales hype. As you might know somethings are oversold for what they realy are.

One thing I have looked at is DayLite, but it was more than I needed for my small biz. ( Just me and sometimes one other).

West