A Different Perspective On Snow Leopard's Exchange Support 276
imamac writes "Apple Insider has an interesting perspective on the MS Exchange support built into Mac OS X 10.6 and how it essentially frees Apple from all things Microsoft: 'Windows Enthusiasts like to spin Apple's support for Exchange on the iPhone and in Snow Leopard as endorsement of Microsoft in the server space. From another angle, Apple is reducing its dependence upon Microsoft's client software, weakening Microsoft's ability to hold back and dumb down its Mac offerings at Apple's expense. More importantly, Apple is providing its users with additional options that benefit both Mac users and the open source community.'"
One thing that's incorrect (Score:5, Informative)
The article says:
"Apple built its support for Exchange using WebDAV..."
Untrue. The Exchange support for Snow Leopard was built using Exchange Web Services, just like the next version of Microsoft's client, Entourage.
Re:How does this *free* Mac users? (Score:5, Informative)
There is no single "Exchange Protocol." What you might be talking about is MAPI, the protocol Outlook uses to talk to Exchange (and the oldest protocol Exchange supports, I believe). MAPI is full documented on MSDN, and there are a number of open source implementations of MAPI (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MAPI [wikipedia.org]).
However, the Exchange support in Snow Leopard doesn't use MAPI, it uses Exchange Web Services, which is also open and documented on MSDN.
Re:"dumb down?" (Score:3, Informative)
OS X has easily accessible context menus. You right click, and it pops up.
I guess if you still have one of the mice that came with Macs years ago you might still have to hold down control and click, but if you haven't plugged in a two button mouse in all that time you probably don't really care.
Re:"dumb down?" (Score:1, Informative)
Are you talking about the contextual menus that have been there since MacOS 8 (which came out in 1997)? Apple doesn't have a problem with contextual menus being there. Their main issue is that contextual menus shouldn't be the only place you can find certain features or options, which sadly is all too common in the Windows and Linux worlds.
Re:"dumb down?" (Score:4, Informative)
Re:"dumb down?" (Score:4, Informative)
Any of the new (intel and last few generations of PPC) mac portables, you can easily "right" click by a two finger tap. Easy peasy.
Sheldon
Re:How does this *free* Mac users? (Score:4, Informative)
A feature that can't be accessed by MAPI? Just how do you think Outlook talks to Exchange?
I think you mean IMAP and DAV there...
Re:Microsoft is the big winner here, RIM loses (Score:4, Informative)
xservers are crap compared to HP and dell. 1U server with only 3 drives is a joke. nehalem server and no support for 144GB of RAM? i just priced out 1U HP servers a few days ago and they can go to 144GB of RAM in a 1U server with 8 hard drives. and Apple only sells 1U servers and no blades. unless you are strictly an OS X shop or need OS X for something there is no reason to even consider Apple for anything serious
Re:Fix SMB first (Score:1, Informative)
What SMB problems? My MBP connects just fine to all te shared drives around, and when I connect to a new network, it shows all the available shares very quickly.
Compare that to a XP install that repeatedly tells me that "I don't have the necessary permissions" to view the public, no password share.
There are many types of shares and SMB. There are many definitions of "no password".
You can set permissions so that anyone can access the share, but the definition of anyone is client computers that are part of the domain.
Your server might be configured to require NTLMv2 authentication (it should be, all the other methods are very weak and easy to crack). BUT, the out-of-the-box default for winXP is to only use LM and NTLM authentication, so you can't connect to a NTLMv2 share at all.
You have to enable NTLMv2 manually [colostate.edu]. One of the few good things about Vista is that Microsoft finally changed the default to require the use NTLMv2.
Re:"dumb down?" (Score:1, Informative)
You're probably just trying to be funny, but just in case: Apple computers use standard USB mice. If you don't like the Apple mouse, use a different brand.
Re:Microsoft just got 1-Uped (Score:3, Informative)
Sort of. OWA gives you a stripped-down interface if you're using Firefox, Safari or any other browser besides IE. On Exchange 2003 if you've never used IE you might not be aware of this; on Exchange 2007 it tells you on the login page that you can only use the Lite version.
Re:How does this *free* Mac users? (Score:2, Informative)
Yes, Apple's increased support for the Exchange protocol may improve the user experience when dealing with Exchange servers. However, it does nothing to actually free users from Microsoft.
Actually, anyone heard of PostPath? Cisco acquired them a while back and they make what amounts to a hugely scalable 'exchange' back end, thus Snow Leopard + PostPath (actually being called WebEx Mail, now I believe) and then there is no M$ needed.