LinuxPlanet: Editor’s Note: Is Ximian Practicing Appeasement or Practicality?

“This isn’t the first time Microsoft has faced a
challenge to its Exchange/Outlook combination. Bynari’s TradeServer
is designed to replace Exchange outright, attacking the server side
of the equation and allowing Microsoft clients in an organization
to remain in place. Ximian is going after the client, acknowledging
that organizations will have investments in Microsoft server
software they’ll be unwilling to write off.

Without making comment on the health of Linux on the desktop,
perhaps the most well-gnawed subject of 2001 and possibly the most
bone-headed litmus test of one’s “true believer” status concocted
since it was fashionable to check suspected witches for buoyancy,
this is a good announcement for a lot of organizations that have
not decided to make the move to Linux for productivity apps but
maintain a sizable cadre of Linux-using engineers, admins, and
developers (think Google) who get their work done with Linux.

This will be a nettlesome issue to the element of Linux
supporters who want nothing to do with Microsoft at all. This same
element is hostile to attempts to work with Microsoft’s .NET,
thought Evolution itself was a bad idea to begin with if only
because it looks an awful lot like Outlook (which implies tacit
acknowledgment that there’s something to like about a Microsoft
product), and generally frames interactions between the world of
Linux and the world of Microsoft as a zero-sum game.”

Complete
Story