Re: Exchange?
"It s**ks as an email server, but the collaboration and integration"
sucks as an e-mail server, yeah. collaboration and integration requires their proprietary APIs to make it work, and that means outlook, and that means *SERIOUS* security problems.
Typical scenario: low-level accountant is e-mailed [spear phished?] a spreadsheet containing a virus of some kind, and it's previewed in 'Virus Outbreak' (aka MS Outlook), and before being deleted, infects the accountant's computer and begins spreading via Exchange...
AFTERTHOUGHT: Maybe the reason why no FOSS applications have this is because of INHERENT INSECURITY? Or maybe the 'niche' filled by Micro-shaft's solution is just something FOSS-makers don't really consider *important* enough to write software for...
ok that last part would be a bit of a marketing fail, as in "failing to see the need" and therefore "failing to fill the void in the market". I personally do *NOT* see the need to have this level of integration. I don't use it, I don't want it, I don't need it. T-bird has a calendar that works for me. Contacts can be maintained in various ways, INCLUDING Google's solution [from what I've seen].
BUT... if someone can JUST explain to me what this "need" is, I bet I could write [read: lead a team of developers doing the actual work] a really good FOSS solution for it, that would beat the pants off of Exchange and Virus Outbreak, run on non-windows platforms, and NOT have serious security problems. It would be worth a kickstarter program, or at least a ".org" web site with a paypal 'donate' button, to get paid developers working on it full-time and put to rest this HIDEOUS "solution" that Micro-shaft excreted nearly 2 decades ago...
and the FOSS solution would be written in C or C++, and *NOT* C-pound, and wouldn't use ".Not". It might even fork T-bird or Evolution on the front-end, and fork back-end systems like Cyrus and sendmail, just to have a nice starting point. It could have perl and/or python support for easy customization, too, and maybe even [gasp] a Java-based (or python-based) UI to configure it. You know, something people would REALLY want, something consultants could wrap their skill sets around, and something that would meet unexpected needs for DECADES without the security nightmare and proprietary nature of Exchange and Outbreak.
[but as for WHY people NEED "those features", I admit, I totally do NOT 'get it']