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Microsoft Businesses OS X Operating Systems Apple

Microsoft to Add Exchange Support for Mac OS X 29

Posted by pudge from the exchange-is-so-2002 dept.
rgmoore writes "MacNN is reporting that Microsoft will finally make a full-fledged Exchange client for Mac OS X. Today, Mac users can only access the full range of Exchange services by using Outlook 2001, available only under Mac OS. Mac OS X users could either use Entourage, or they could run Outlook 2001 under the Classic environment. Microsoft is now promising to update Entourage so that it will be able to access all of Exchange's services, and they're even promising it will be available as a free update. Since many companies love to use Exchange and have made a big deal of Mac OS X's lack of a viable client, this is a big step forward for Mac users in a corporate environment."
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Microsoft to Add Exchange Support for Mac OS X

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  • Ximian Connector (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    http://www.ximian.com/products/connector/
    • Yes, well you need to pay for Connector as opposed to the free update Microsoft is sending, though since its Microsoft, Connector may be the better option.
      • Sure, the update may be free, but I'd still have to buy Entourage licenses for each of my OS X users, at $100 a pop. What's Ximian's connector going for? $60? Then there's the cost of upgrading aging Exchange 5.5 systems to 2000. I'd rather see someone (Apple?) develop a conduit between iCal and Exchange's calendars. Calendar items seem to be available over IMAP.


    • Connector is a proprietary product distributed in binary form. There are no OS X binaries. Nat Freidman has said Ximian would port it if there was enough demand, but considering Evolution barely runs on OS X under X11, much less under the native APIs, that demand does not yet exist. With this announcement, it is unlikely it ever will.

      I suspect the Exchange widget for Entourage will work the same way Connector does, provideing webDAV/XML services to the client via Exchange 2000's Outlook Web Access facility.

  • Guess that one unix pariah chained up in Microsoft's basement was getting bored again.

  • This is great news for Mac users (Score:4, Insightful)

    by elliotj ( 519297 ) <slashdot&elliotjohnson,com> on Thursday February 13, 2003 @07:12PM (#5297987) Homepage
    I'm sure this thread will have a lot of Microsoft bashing. The fact is that as bad as Exchange is (and it can be a pig to admin), there are precious few alternatives for a centralized email/groupware server. Especially one that integrates seamlessly with Office.

    The reality for a lot of people is that they have to use Microsoft products in the work place. When Entourage works with Exchange, at least those people who'd rather use a Mac (and not Classic) will be able to use one at work.

    I know you can use OWA, but it isn't the same thing.

    I for one can't wait until I can use my Powerbook at work and nothing else!
    • The fact is that as bad as Exchange is (and it can be a pig to admin), there are precious few alternatives for a centralized email/groupware server. Especially one that integrates seamlessly with Office.

      Yeah... but Apple might be working on one. They've got Mail, iCal and Address Book already-- all they need is a server app to tie them all together, and/or to make a single, new app that's a hybrid of the three of them.

      And as for Office integration, Apple has already released Keynote, and rumors are flying of a new, allegedly-in-development, full-featured word processor called Document. No word of a spreadsheet yet, but they could sufficiently pump up the one in AppleWorks. Any doubters of how well Apple can integrate its apps with each other and the OS need only look at iLife.

      If you step back and look at the big picture, it's pretty clear that Apple already has a lot of the disparate pieces of what they rely on Microsoft for-- and that with some work, those pieces could be tied together into a superior, Mac-based alternative to Outlook and Office.

      There are many, many Mac users who despise Microsoft but grudgingly use their products because there's no truly viable alternative out there-- those people would switch in a minute if it meant they could cast off the Microsoft chains. Now that Apple seems to be willing to play hardball with Microsoft and release competing products, those people probably scare the shit out of Microsoft.

      ~Philly
    • Indeed it is. I just upgraded my Dad's G4 Cube to OS X for the first time. (Teacher - got a free copy). He uses Outlook at work and was having to use Outlook through Classic which is slow and inefficient. This is the killer app that was keeping him (and other educators) on OS 9.

  • Finally, they support their own product... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by millz ( 127712 ) <millz&incogen,com> on Thursday February 13, 2003 @07:17PM (#5298044) Homepage
    I've actually been happily surprised by Exchange in our 20 user environment. Coming from sendmail, I expected it to be about 10 times annoying than it has been. Of course, by typing that, my Exchange server is crashing this very minute. Anyway, it's nice to see them finally coming around with a client for OS X. I was very surprised that it was not in the original Entourage release in the first place.
  • Having said that, it's about God damned time Microsoft got on the stick and provided a true OS X solution for Exchange connectivity. POP, IMAP, and OWA are not optimal solutions, and for places who don't want to be bothered with Classic, continuing to run Outlook 2001 is not an option.

    Once this application makes its debut, there's only one dickhead company left who needs to get their ass in gear and produce an OS X native version of their product. <cough>Quark<cough>

    BTW, in *recent* news,Apple released OS X 10.2.4 late this afternoon-- it's in Software Update if anyone's interested.

    ~Philly

    • Re:This is old news, it was announced Monday (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      POP, IMAP, and OWA are not optimal solutions

      It will require IMAP to access mail, DAV for calendar, and LDAP for accessing the global directory (looking up people in your organization so you can email them). This is not going to be parity with the PC Outlook client.

      So if you're a Mac user thinking you'll be able to get going on your company's stock Exchange 2000 server without begging your Exchange admin to make some changes (biggies are to enable Outlook Web Access and IMAP access to your mailbox), you've got another think coming...

      Oh, and if your Exchange server has Outlook Web Access and IMAP turned on, you could use ANY IMAP mail client, and just use Outlook Web Access when you need to do calendar stuff like send and accept invitations.
  • I submitted this info two days ago. All I gotta say is, "About freaking time!" Now all the whiners who said they'd switch to a Mac when Exchange rolled out can finally put their money where their mouth is. Who wants to bet they'll come up w/ a new excuse not to SWITCH???
    • I submitted this info two days ago.

      Yes, and so did I. It just took the editors a couple of days to get around to putting it up.

      • wasn't trying to belittle your contribution... just more of a suprise it took them so long to post seeing as 'exchange' is a thorn in many converter's back... ;)

        peace
  • after all osx already comes with all the components: mail, adreessbook, ical. Calendar sharing is a just a couple of dialogues and interfaces away. In iCal new appointmens could launch mail's compose window with the request preattached (no self-send stuff please! we don't want outlook virii) and the location availablity is just a dav calendar flagged to a resource rather than a person.
    Apple just has to package a server config interface, add a couple of icons and documantation and roll it's own. Integrated for easy rollout, open (mime-atttach passing across apps) for the sophisticated that want the option, many specialized apps to appease the unixers, cool to stick it at Bill!
  • Could this have anything to do with rumors coming down the pipe of a GOBE Office / Appleworks / (Open Office?) application suite to finally do away with MS on mac? It seems microsoft is actually going to have to deliver on some long neglected promises to compete in the near future. Get all these people who have just been waiting for Exchange support before Apple comes in with a Rendezvous enabled iLife integrated Office killer. Are Safari and Keynote are the raising of a new pirate flag in Cupertino?

  • Exchange 2000 (Score:4, Informative)

    by joel8x ( 324102 ) on Thursday February 13, 2003 @11:15PM (#5299354) Homepage
    In the announcement the say it will be compatible with Exchange 2000 servers and up. This is not good. Most of the corporate world hasn't had a reason to move off of Exchange 5.5 yet!

    • The prob is Exch2k requires Active Directory (Score:5, Informative)

      by extra88 ( 1003 ) on Friday February 14, 2003 @12:18AM (#5299639)
      A lot of companies have the same problem my university does, they can't upgrade from Exchange 5.5 to Exchange 2000 because it requires Active Directory. Switching to Active Directory requires a lot of careful planning and in most cases, visits to every seat. It'll happen eventually but it's a lot harder than upgrading a cluster of groupware servers.

      This summer our new Macs will run OS X, a first for us outside our department. Fortunately the Exchange server has IMAP enabled so we'll start them off with Entourage without the update then apply it when the server is ready. They won't have group calendaring but all the Macs are going to faculty who only really want email anyway. Entourage makes a pretty good Exchange+IMAP client, the main thing I miss is the Global Address List.
      • You can get the global address list to work with Entourage, by connecting to your exchange server through the Directory Services tool ( Tools > Directory Services). Of course, Apple's Mail.app does a better job, allowing you to connect to the directory AND have email addresses autocomplete.
        • I haven't tried but others have (with Mail.app too). They had problems with it not working right, not knowing the correct "search base" or something. Since I use Entourage only secondarily (primary is Outlook 2000 in the office), it's not much of an issue for me. Anyone I want to email has already emailed me so the address history does the trick. We'll need to figure it out before deploying it though.

  • Not so fast... (Score:2, Informative)

    by Feral Bueller ( 615138 )
    The article references a Microsoft Press Release, which makes a few points that has me less than excited about this.

    This is not an Exchange client, but "enhanced Exchange functionality" added to Entourage. The only enhanced functionality they seem to be talking about it sharing calendars (more on that below)

    The previous Mac Exchange Clients were free. Entourage isn't - a stand-alone copy runs about $90. While it's "free" if you buy office, it's not if you just want Exchange server connectivity.

    Microsoft is charging OS X users twice: once for the CAL (Client Access License) and once for Entourage.

    There are another two options in a corporate environment that work - one not so well and one that works great:

    1. Web Access. This one only works for viewing *your* calendar items: a true shared calendar, i.e. one that lets you see not only what you are doing but what everyone else is doing doesn't work using via Web Access.

    2. Citrix. If you're lucky, your company has Citrix implemented for something. Ask your friendly MSCE to create a profile for you that has whatever version of Outlook your company's running. Then you get real feature compatibility.
    Note: if you do this, don't use the OS X Citrix client -- it's buggy as hell. Grab the Java version.

    I've been running this on my OSX box for about a year now, and it works great, whether I'm in the office or logged into our domain (either VPN or Dial-up).

    While Ximian looks promising, they don't appear to have any interest in developing for OS X, and unless they can present a really compelling argument for why I should do so (other than, "we're not Micro$oft"), I don't see why I should give them $60 for their product as opposed to $90 for straight from the horse's...

    Whatever.



    • Note: if you do this, don't use the OS X Citrix client -- it's buggy as hell. Grab the Java version.
      Really? I certainly haven't found the Carbonized client to be any buggier than the Java one. Plus I've never been able to get the Java client to print. If you have I'd love to know how.

      I've been running this on my OSX box for about a year now, and it works great, whether I'm in the office or logged into our domain (either VPN or Dial-up).


      I used it as our standard client until the native version arrived. Using MRJAppBuilder, it only took a couple of minutes to whip up .app bundles for each of our published apps, sourcing parameters from .ini files inside the bundles themselves. I had to do that because of MRJ's inability to parse quotes, which broke any published apps with spaces in their names. Anyway, I find the native client faster and more reliable.

      While Ximian looks promising, they don't appear to have any interest in developing for OS X, and unless they can present a really compelling argument for why I should do so (other than, "we're not Micro$oft"), I don't see why I should give them $60 for their product as opposed to $90 for straight from the horse's.


      Naturally they don't want to port Evolution themselves, as it is GPLed. However, if we ported it ourselves they would be happy to port Connector. I guess I would want to see which was better (Entourage or Evolution) on the platform. One bonus to Evolution is that anyone can write their own connector for it. If Ximian went out of business or dropped OS X support there would still be hope. Likewise, I think they publish an API for Connector, so you could also write a new client that worked with it.
      • I certainly haven't found the Carbonized client to be any buggier than the Java one. Plus I've never been able to get the Java client to print. If you have I'd love to know how.

        I'll take another look at the OS X Client -- at the time I looked at it, and made the decision to play around with MRJAppBuilder for the first time based on my initial frustrations with it.

        I don't know if this will be any help, but our network admins set up the various citrix instances so that our print preferences would follow our profiles across a number of published apps. The way they did this was to create a "Print" instance that users connect to first and mapped to whatever printers that the users want to connect to -- for example, my default printer is Adobe PDF Printer, which has a default save to my private directory on a file server. All of our printers are served via several print servers, so what a new Citrix user does is log in to the "Print" instance, map their printers, and then any published app they log into with their NT account, they get the printers as set up in the "Print" instance.

        Our Network Admins aren't very helpful, so that's about as much information as I've got.

        I'll have to nose around Ximian's site more: if they've got a connector API, that lends itself to all sorts of alternate solutions - thanks for the info.

        • I'll take another look at the OS X Client -- at the time I looked at it, and made the decision to play around with MRJAppBuilder for the first time based on my initial frustrations with it.
          I'm still using 6.30.314 (build 60841). Maybe you tried the public beta? It was pretty bad. Many features were missing (encryption, printing etc.) and stability was poor. I went with the Java client at that point.

          I don't know if this will be any help, but our network admins set up the various citrix instances so that our print preferences would follow our profiles across a number of published apps. The way they did this was to create a "Print" instance that users connect to first and mapped to whatever printers that the users want to connect to -- for example, my default printer is Adobe PDF Printer, which has a default save to my private directory on a file server. All of our printers are served via several print servers, so what a new Citrix user does is log in to the "Print" instance, map their printers, and then any published app they log into with their NT account, they get the printers as set up in the "Print" instance.
          Yeah, that ain't gonna happen in our environment, mainly for political reasons. Luckily we upgraded to XP, so it isn't an issue. The Metaframe XP print architecture is a big improvement over the previous system. It seems to be a purely pass through system. So you configure printing on the client OS and it just works. No need to select printers on the Metaframe side. That works with the Carbon client but not the Java one.

          I'll have to nose around Ximian's site more: if they've got a connector API, that lends itself to all sorts of alternate solutions - thanks for the info.
          I may have been exagerating there, but I am certain they are open to third party clients. I base this on things I heard Nat Freidman say at a conference, but I forget the details. If you are really interested in doing something like that, I suggest e-mailing Nat or Miquel or whomever and asking.

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