performance vs innovation (scalix vs zimbra)

[obrodkin]

I am about to switch my little company to Scalix SMB. And from time to time I am glancing over the fence: Zimbra, Novell, ... just checking to make sure I made a right choice (self-justification.. we all needed)

I can clearly see how Scalix put efforts into performance issues trying to be solid Outlook/Exchange replacement. Nothing wrong with this. For my own benefit - good luck! But sooner or later, scalix can be classified as WEB 1.0 application. This is not about UI.

2007 is WEB 2.0 .... dude, and it does not mean port HTML/PHP to AJAX and be done. Email is transforming to be much more for the businesses than .... just email. It is a corp portal:

calendar, contacts, schedule, IM, project management, corp blog, docs management, search engine and much more. Today, people trying to do these things with old email: document storage (tell me about't: users with 2GB mailbox size), customer management ("... where the old quote from this schmok?"), discussion forums.

To survice, Scalix has to recognize the trends and give users tools that they will use tomorrow. I am NOT talking about all in one, the Swiss knife solution. Just make my day easier with 80% of usual business activities:
1) share documents
2) quick chat, IM
3) contact management (not just database)
4) blog
5) to share web pages
6) including wiki

Don't invent the wheel, just incorporate them as existing solution. Fine with me.

Thanks

[KevinAnderson]

I'm not sure if you're looking for an answer here or not, but I'll at least post to acknowledge the thread.

I think that you'll see that Scalix's Open Solutions Architecture is meant to address this inherently. I'll give 2 examples.

1) Contact Management. I'll assume here, you mean CRM, that is, a place to store details of the various relationships a company develops over time. I think everyone agrees that's important, and Scalix has partnered with SugarCRM to facilitate an integration between a CRM package and a Scalix server.

2) Directories. This isn't new by any stretch, but again, Directories are a new concept, especially in the Windows world. And Scalix has just grown with them. Scalix supports OpenLDAP, or AD, and as that world has changed from NDS to AD/OpenLDAP, Scalix has had little or no problem adapting. You don't mention it, but I do think that's a significant shift from binderys and/or NT domains. It's also an excellent example of Scalix's ability to stay current with customer needs.

Kev.

[shlashdot]

I have just gone online with Scalix for my small business.

The reason is, we needed email, contacts, calendar, tasks, and ability to share all of these. We tried Exchange and didn't like it.

I recommend choosing software based on what it can do, not what it might do in the future. (although the converse is not true - you should consider what it might not do in the future, see Microsoft)

The features you mention sound good, and your point is well made, but none of them are as important as stability, usability, and ease of administration. The thing is, you are really talking blue sky, a blank slate. Which is very valuable, but strange to hear in a post about software you are about to deploy.

After Scalix has a non-Microsoft client that is better than Outlook, with the features I mention and stable, and a more complete admin console, then more features might be nice [for me].

I do hope as well that Scalix is not afraid to break with the past when appropriate.

[swordfish]

There is plenty of hype about what some companies are promising what they can do in future. Not sure what the reason is for this - may be trying to up their price in hope that someone will buy them, etc. As long as Scalix is on good track with the existing capabilities and able to move quickly in future but at the same time learning from past mistakes (like the case with the numerous problems with the Smart Cache and Outlook Connector) and don't repeat it in future it doesn't really matter whether it's WEB 1.0 or WEB 20.0.