Outlook Alternatives

I am not posting to bash Outlook, but you can't ignore the security risks from a business perspective.

That said, we have several clients interested in migrating to some other application similar to the full version of Outlook. One of the features requested was the ability to have a calendar function, as in Outlook.

If you know of any alternatives, please post.

Thanks

 

Hi,

maybe you would give the NEW Pocomail BARCA a try.
Seems to be what you are searching for.

You can get a 30 Day Trial at Pocosystems

nasa

 

I tried BARCA and it needs some work (it's like a "public beta ").
Also tried Bloomba, and it has lots missing compared to Outlook.

 

Very true, indeed - and XP SP2 (if and when it arrives) is intended to
address many security (as well as other) issues. For something that has
(nearly) everything, I don't think you can beat Outlook 2003.

 

For an alternative view point, I have liked Outlook for a long time. However, I think it is great that there are now a number of excellent alternatives. There are a number of e-mail clients that are as good as if not better than Outlook. And no matter how much I like the interface, it has to be said that as far as security is concerned, Outlook is playing catch up.

However, as far as this thread is concerned the difficult bit is an alternative scheduling/calendar option. The best that I use regularly is Evolution on Linux. Windows alternatives such as Thunderbird and Eudora don't seem to have the calendar / scheduling side of things covered. There are some server base options, but in honesty, I think Outlook is the best bet at the moment.

However, in 6 months time......

 

This is turning out to be a good thread Thanks for the feedback.

Evolution ( I believe) is built using Ximian...which is now under Novell control. At least that's how I read it.

As for Calendaring under T-bird, there is an extension you can download for a Local calendar. After downloading this, I have to say it is pretty smooth, but a little buggy. While setting and viewing calendar events is pretty straight forward and works, printing a particular calendar view doesn't seem to work. There is also a link for sharing calendars using WebDAV.

http://www.mozilla.org/projects/calendar/index.html

Our email server has a groupware "add-in ", which does have group/private calendars, contacts and folders. I don't have much experience on the groupware components, but as for the email server goes, the application has serverd us well interms of anit-spam, virus protection and general administration. At this point I am sort-of leaning towards this.

http://www.icewarp.com

If your interested in looking at the forum help.

http://forum.altair7.org/bb2/index.php

 

Nice feedback. Looks as though I need to have a look at those extensions.

We use MDaemon and that gives us some scheduling/calendar functions via its web interface. However, the web interface is a bit clunky. Very handy as a backup to a client based e-mail app.

I've had a look at the IceWarp site. The software appears similar to MDaemon. Have you looked at the Web interface? This has calendar functions shown on the screen shot (a Calendar button anyway). Perhaps a calendar without the Groupware option! I'm not sure how the pricing works. With MDaemon the webmail is a free add on.

MDaemon also can be set to link into LDAP or SQL databases, which raises all sorts of interesting options. However Interesting and Simple are often opposites.

Considering the depth you are going in your research it looks like I was too hasty in passing over the server-side options.

 

I'll toss in this little tidbit. I've used Outlook for quite a while and the changes from Outlook XP to Outlook 2003 are excellent. Far and away the best version I've loaded.

It hits me in the face most days since at work we are still using 2002/xp and the security options I have at home on 2003 are way beyond what I have at work.

 

Now you've done it Newt! I'm going to have to dig out an Office 2003 CD and have a play. 24Jedi has a lot to answer for too - I've been looking at WebDav and Mozilla Sunbird too. So many utilities to look at. So little time.

 

Barca from Poco Systems

Barca has the features of Outlook and the security of Poco Mail.
The email client is divorced from Outlook and therefor out of the
line of attack by virus writers. HTML can be managed for each
item received.

A nice feature is the yearly planner which shows in one view
all entered items.

jerrmill