Re: embrace and extend...

 >> d) users which used no GW before
>> I have the strong opinion that "looks-like-Outlook" is very important 
>> (based on customer experience ;-).

Fair enough. I'm coming from the (d) perspective - no existing groupware 
- and I suppose that colours my perceptions quite strongly.

>>> I'd think the priority would be to keep the UI of a mozilla groupware 
>>> client consistent with the rest of Mozilla. Users will whine, but can 
>>> learn to use new things - and often find they like them more in the end.

>> I disagree. We don't want whining users, we want happy users ;-)

True enough. Again, a matter of perspective - I'm in an organisation 
where it's possible for me to spend time personally going over things 
with the users. I've found they're receptive to change so long as they 
get improvements out of it and are helped along the way. Perhaps in 
larger places this might not be practical.

>> That's not what I'm saying. I say "because the target group wants 
>> Outlook", it's not a decision of me ;-) I don't think that Outlook is 
>> from a technical perspective a particulary good guide.

Unfortunate, but no doubt all too true. Curses.

> Stability, scalability and security's foremost in the developer's and IT 
> decision maker's mind,
> but any costs to retrain and per seat 'whining' will be a deal breaker 
> 90% of the time.
> You won't get an executive to listen to one word if you sentence begins 
> with 'well, the learning curve is..."

Interesting - the company I work for is presently migrating to an 
LTSP-based system for many of our basic-needs users (email, web access, 
word processing, etc) with the understanding that there /will/ be a 
significant learning curve, but that the long-run benefits make this 
acceptable. Then again, that learning curve is more costly in time and 
support as the needs and abilities of the users increase, and would 
probably need to be taken as a more serious barrier. I'm used to working 
with very basic users, or folks doing advanced desktop publishing work, 
and not much in between.

It may also be significant that the amount of per-seat whining about the 
current system was growing deafening :-) so I had the users on my side 
for ANY kind of upgrade. The boss just saw the lower up-front cost and 
reduction/lack of future licensing upgrade costs. I was focused on easy 
support, security, stability, data security and easy deployment.

As you can imagine, in this environment I'd be interested in a groupware 
app that fit in quite cleanly with Mozilla's existing UI, since the 
users are now used to that but have no real expectations about the 
behaviour of groupware apps.

Nonetheless, one client is in many ways as good as another, and we won't 
complain no matter what.