OETP

[gglynn]

Is a server-side implementation of the Outlook-Exchange Transport Protocol (aka OETP, aka MAPI/RPC) on the development roadmap at this point?

[kanderson]

The technology was licensed from MS last year, and that's fairly common knowledge.

This has led to Active Sync seeing drastic improvements in support, and (this is public knowledge on the forum at this point, so I'll reiterate it here) Over The Air support for Activesync in version 11.4 due out shortly.

Further discussion of Activesync and other MS-Xandros relationship benefits are happening RIGHT NOW in this thread.

viewtopic.php?t=10503

Enjoy.

Kev.

[gglynn]

Further discussion of Activesync and other MS-Xandros relationship benefits are happening RIGHT NOW in this thread.

viewtopic.php?t=10503

Enjoy.

Kev.

Yeah, I'd seen that thread, but I wanted to start a new one specifically to address OETP by itself, and was hoping to get some feedback from the developers.

So, developers, is OETP targeted for 11.5? Or is it farther out than that?

[florian]

We haven't taken a final decision on if and when to implement this - some parts of the rationale are actually explained in the other thread. One further technical argument - we're currently looking at some functionalities that actually go beyond what Microsoft does with Exchange. Some of those will require client-side UI. If we went OETP, not only would we get what you get with Exchange, but as we've lost our client-side component with the connector, we couldn't extend Outlook's UI anymore so easily.

It's not planned for 11.5, as this would be a larger and architectural change, it would be part of a 12ish-type release.

Any specific reason why this is so relevant for you?

Florian.

[gglynn]

Hey, Florian,

Thanks for replying, sorry it took so long for me to respond.

I have a few customers interested in a drop-in Exchange replacement for Outlook that doesn't require Active Directory, that's all. Having to use the connector isn't a huge deal, it's just an extra piece of software to worry about. Also, I imagine--but could be wrong--that Offline Folders and Cached Mode would go along with an OETP implementation and would work exactly the way they do when an Outlook client is configured against an Exchange Server. And, of course, we're interested in Outlook Anywhere (RPC-HTTP) support, which might or might not be part of an OETP implementation.

[florian]

Independent of the general discussion, could you give me some more thoughts on

Also, I imagine--but could be wrong--that Offline Folders and Cached Mode would go along with an OETP implementation and would work exactly the way they do when an Outlook client is configured against an Exchange Server.

I am wondering what use cases would be covered here that are not covered by Scalix SmartCache today? On the contrary, SmartCache works with all Outlook versions 2000 and up, so has a somewhat broader scope than Outlook Exchange Cached Mode...

Tx,
Florian.

[gglynn]

I haven't tried out the SmartCache feature, yet. Is it stable? Frankly, I've seen a bunch of forum posts detailing some instability, which makes me wary. I'm aware that the negative is highlighted more than the positive in any support/feedback forum, though, and I'll get back to you after I've tested it myself using the latest versions of Scalix and Scalix Connect for Outlook.

I guess the overall appeal of a server-side OETP implementation for me is that, in theory, at least, Outlook can be left alone to do what it does. We're not especially interested in extending Outlook itself at the moment (but that could change).

We have a pretty clear love-hate relationship with Outlook. To my dismay, there's no FOSS alternative to it, and a few things about it really drive me bonkers--the fact that reminder alarms only fire from the top-level Calendar and Tasks folders, for instance--but overall, it does what I and our customers need/expect it to do, and that includes Cached Mode, Offline Folders, and Outlook Anywhere (even though I've had the latter break on me hard enough to require a complete reinstallation of Windows XP in order to get it working again).

[florian]

I would dare saying that SmartCache is stable these days. We see a few glitches once in a while and with every release we cover some. 11.4 is what quite a number of people use in their daily lives and except for if you do pretty whacky things it should serve you well.

Give it a shot....

The other thing around OETP is that once we go down that route, we no longer have an easy way to extend Outlook's UI and deliver functionality that Exchange doesn't have.... and looking at some of our thoughts on roadmap (too early to talk about details), we may want to keep that door open!!

Cheers,
Florian.