"It would ordinarily be odd to read about a Windows-side utility
in LinuxPlanet until you think about the implications of a utility
that enables drop-in use of an IMAP server as a replacement for a
Microsoft Exchange mail server. Microsoft provides Outlook Express
as a basic free mail client with every Internet Explorer download,
and bundles Outlook itself (which adds groupware features like
calendaring and scheduling) with packages like Microsoft
Office.
"For all intents and purposes, either version of Outlook is
free--but the Microsoft Exchange mail server, which is most
definitely not free, is required (until now) in order to use
Outlook's calendaring features. An additional, per-client licensing
fee, is just icing on the expensive Microsoft cake.
"Using the Exchange server in a corporate IT environment also
has 'hidden' costs, such as mandatory and expensive upgrades for
the Exchange server itself. These expenses are often followed by
incompatibilities between different versions of Outlook and
Exchange that require Outlook and Outlook Express upgrades, which
often translate into mandatory upgrades from one version of Windows
to another. If you hear a huge flushing noise behind you, that may
be the sound of your IT budget going down the tubes..."
