Comments on: Mozilla's Lightning to strike Outlook?

Open-source group starts effort to integrate its Sunbird calendar into Thunderbird e-mail program.

Here's why MS should watch it's back!

A MS rep in this article actually says: "we don't see it as being applicable for serious business use" simply because Mozilla's calendar doesn't play with Exchange Server. Well, sorry guys, but not every business is an enterprise. I run a one man show, and I need a calendar. Am I not serious? If they dont value me as a customer, I'll go somewhere else, thanks. Come join me: www.mozilla.org

[Yuhong2]

Small Business

Although do keep in mind there is Microsoft Windows Small Business Server, which do include Exchange Server.

Applies to any small to medium size...

Well, any small to medium size business can benefit greatly from
the Mozilla Firefox and Thunderbird combination. Not just
individuals.

Microsoft's software tends to be complicated...poor usability,
faulty architecture, ugly user interfaces and high prices.

Just take their e-mail application Entourge for the Mac. This
thing is a disgrace! Horrible user interface! Clutter everywhere!
The simplicity, beauty and power or Thunderbird cannot be
compared to this garbage (Entourage).

OpenConnector.org

Microsoft stated that there is no
open source replacement for
Exchange that integrates with
Office Outlook.

We have work underway on a
Open-source Outlook Connector at
[ http://openconnector.org/ ]

Their statement may not be true
in a quarter or just about.

This MS response reminds me of something...

Oh yeah, they said similar things about Linux for the last several years. They're not saying that now, of course. Funny thing is, with open source, they have no idea how big the threat is. I have a few Linux workstations, and many Linux servers running at work. I've never registered them, never purchased anything that would indicate that we use Linux so heavily. Microsoft probably gets the credit, as all but 3 servers used to run Windows. And at home I have 2 desktops and 3 laptops running Linux, all formerly Windows systems. Could never have been able to afford what we are doing at work or at home if we used Windows. Legally, anyway. I'll bet it's not the research that's been done on who buys Linux, or the number of Linux sales that worry MS, but rather that which they cannot do.

[nrlz]

MS response

MS's response on these Mozilla projects lately sound vague and uninteresting. As if the interviewer caught a MS representative on the bus and asked him/her a question while at the same time the representative is half eating a donut and reading a newspaper and just wanted to mutter anything to have some privacy.

[maineshire]

Thunderbird will not over take outlook until they can get it to sync with Blackberry.

You'd get a lot more usage if you leveraged Google. Get Calendar & Contacts integration with their API. Then you can sync with mobile phones and Outlook easily. I'm so ready to dump Outlook due its poor IMAP support but Thunderbird is missing fast indexed search (search thousands of e-mails in under 1 second).