MS Exchange Server competition

[Bill McGonigle]

On Aug 17, 2004, at 08:20, Kevin D. Clark wrote:

> What does MAPI give an end-user that all of the other open protocols
> (SMTP, POP, IMAP, LDAP, MIME, whatever calendar protocol/scheme you're
> using, etc) don't already provide?

It's not the wire protocol, it's the client-side API that gives you 
things like 'mail this document' in a word processor.  So given the 
MAPI API as a black box, you can write one that speaks IMAP, WebDAV, 
etc. out the other end.  If I understand it correctly, you can 
implement all of Microsoft's undocumented MAPI calls and translate them 
into your own calls and in theory implement an Exchange replacement 
that doesn't behave like Exchange on the network.

I've also heard that Samsung Contact, formerly HP OpenMail, is 
Exchange-compatible at the network level, costs about the same as 
Exchange but is unix-reliable.  Anybody here have experience with it?

-Bill
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