Re: embrace and extend...

Up till now, I've been mostly lurking to get the feel for what's going on.
Not being overly savvy on the Linux platform, I'm hugely interested in this
topic and following closely.

Some general observations to be made:

The popularity of other groupware platforms is based on the platforms
ability to provide what the customer needs and wants.  Often, it's the best
platform for integrating disparate systems and providing a strong workable
user experience.  Exchange/Outlook provides that.  Notes/Domino provides
that etc.  And they provide it on many many platforms allowing just about as
much flexibility as one could want (speaking mostly of Domino, but clients
count in this).  Without a Windows client (not HTML only) offering as much
functionality as the full client version (OGo web access client) or more,
it's tough to work with the mobile crowd and some of the users who hate HTML
interfaces.  They want the ability to work offline and the ability to get
full features while disconnected.  Hard to provide that with a server based
client.  They also want to know that it scales and can be used with a
minimal amount of bandwidth (compression techniques etc).  But with all of
that, they want the meaningful features that make it useful and reliability.

Outlook/Exchange is not the best at extensibility so why do people continue
to buy it?  Notes/Domino is not that great at scalability and message
transfer, but people buy it all the time. Why?

My only conclusion is people buy it because it does what they want and the
price will have to be tolerated.  I'm sure that if the client/Server feature
set matches what the client wants at an opensource price, many companies
will be more than happy to get away from the Outlook interface and the
Exchange/Domino backend (one of the strengths of Outlook is that besides the
easy to use UI the client connects well to many different data sources
including Domino if desired).

If that means that a client is similar to Outlook in appearance then so be
it.  If that means that the backend has a web interface, that's great.  If
that means that to get the capabilities we want and need for users to solve
business and comfort problems, then that's what it takes.  But one thing is
for sure, the more client flexibility with as much functionality as possible
that is offered the better.  A Windows client will reach much of the
corporate desktops out there.  Opensource or not, there is a lot of
companies that aren't ready to switch to a *nix desktop even on the intel
platform so clients need to go where the clients are.

Just my thoughts and observations for what it's worth.

Al


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Helge Hess" <[email protected]>
Cc: <[email protected]>
Sent: Monday, July 21, 2003 10:42 AM
Subject: Re: [OGo-Discuss] embrace and extend...


> robert on a list wrote:
> > Hello All
> > My first post and I am will jump straight in...
> > Really. Does the world need another Outlook lookalike.
>
> Of course not! But there is no OpenSource Outlook lookalike which runs
> on Windows, that's the problem (if you know one, let me know). If there
> would be an existing one, we could just extend it to access the OGo
server.
>
> There are several attempts to build something like Outlook, eg:
> - Evolution (only Linux)
> - Glow      (Java Swing)
> - Chandler
> but none is in the state of replacing Outlook on Windows yet.
>
> BTW: It's not the focus of OGo to provide clients, see the mission.
>
> > What is the point of difference for the user if it looks a bit like the
thing
> > they use now. It is then compared in a much more direct way with
Outlook.Notes.
> > Whatever. This will inevitably fail as we are playing "catchup" with
> > Microsoft/Lotus. They always have the lead! What we need to do is
leapfrog them.
> > How?
>
> OGo *is* different from Outlook and provides much more functionality
> through the web interface. This is not going to go away.
>
> It would be just nice to have something for business people already used
> to Outlook (something like Evolution, only for Windows). And yes this is
> important for reasons already stated.
>
> > The point I am feebly trying to make is that the "components" should be
"black
> > boxes" that do what they do very well. [pretend its *nix :-) ]The
components
> > should integrate silently. Offer intelligent help and have LESS
features.
>
> Sure.
>
> > Email needs only a few things
>
> OGo is not directly related to eMail but focuses on group collaboration.
>
> best regards,
>    Helge
> -- 
> http://www.opengroupware.org/
>
> -- 
> OpenGroupware.org Discussion [email protected]
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