[Nottingham] Looking for a better Outlook!

[Martin]

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On 20/11/14 16:12, Jason Irwin wrote:
> On 20/11/14 14:38, Martin wrote:
>> Anyone using such a thing?...
> http://alternativeto.net/software/microsoft-office-outlook/

Thanks for that.

> I don't think there is an alternative product that does
> *everything* that Outlook does. You might find multiple
> co-operating tools or something with plug-ins. Unfortunately
> Outlook is *the* tool for business processes and does way more than
> just email, it a PIM, Calendar, Journal, Task organiser -
> everything. i.e. it's a bloated mess.

The closest candidates for better bloated confusion of functionality
looks to be:

(Gnome) Evolution
https://wiki.gnome.org/Apps/Evolution

... But that looks to not be supported natively on the still
all-too-present Windows desktop.


And:

eM Client
http://www.emclient.com


> Thunderbird (with lightning) is the nearest viable alternative I
> can think of, but I don't think it's up to the job from what you've
> said in the past.

That continues to work very well, especially so if you keep the
calendars down to a reasonable size of no more than a few thousand
items and not too overloaded with repeat events.


> There's also Kontact, but I have not tried in on Windows (heck,
> don't even use it in KDE!)

That is the other "could be", but again is that ported natively to
Windows?


> The other options is to use a website and sell it as "We're in teh
> clowdz!"

Weeeeelllll... We've got a significant group of some new and very
inflexible users who know only Outlook and cannot believe there can be
any other way to work!

There is also their view that they have always used Outlook and it
works and hence no need to do anything differently.

That is all well and good but for the looming cost of the Microsoft
CALs for them, I could completely re-equip both server rooms!!!


Also from my tests with Outlook operation with imap and a plug-in for
compatibility with caldav/carddav, to my mind there suspiciously looks
to be various crippled and contorted functionality to make the
"Microsoft Experience" irritating and time wasting enough to either
force-tease you onto using Microsoft Exchange or to give up and die.

... Or to 'fool' Outlook by using a MAPI interface... ( Evil smirk :-) )


All good fun,
Martin


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