Well, I have been looking at various solutions for mail / calendaring that don’t include Google. Don’t get me wrong, Google Apps is great. However, I have had too many problems, and I get nervous of things like mistakes in shutting off accounts. I have ruled out MS Exchange and Zimbra (licensing / hardware costs are what I consider unreasonable). I have been evaluating Scalix, and it’s still in the running, but I need 11.3 and it won’t be released until Jan 08 (not too long, but long enough). However, I decided to go buy a copy of Mac OS X Server, so far so good. It’s easy to setup, and manage…sometimes a bit too simple, however all and all good.
I have a few gripes, mainly a hardware cost issue. Right now, it is running on a Mac mini, with a USB drive for backup. Not a great solution, but it’s decent. However, to move to something with hot swap RAID, I’m going to need to shell out the $$$. This is kinda not so good, that’s a lot of a sever that will be used by about 15 people. So, Scalix is still in the running for sure.
My quick notes after the jump.
Mac OS X Pros:
- iCalServer = Group Calendaring Zen
- Setup and Configuration = Very easy, anyone can do it.
Mac OS X Cons:
- “Server” level quality hardware = $$$$
- Webmail sucks. Squirrelmail? Not exactly the web 2.0 feature I was looking for. Don’t get me wrong Squirrelmail is rock solid. However, again, it’s not the “the future is now” kinda app. I think that they should have included the webmail program that .Mac uses.
- No web calendaring for users. It would be nice, but we have equipped all personnel with iPhones. So, meh, it would be nice, but not required.
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