ExchangeAdmin.com: Bynari enables Outlook’s sharing and collaboration features with InsightServer

“Thanks to InsightConnector, a new product from Bynari
, IMAP mail accounts, which were once limited to storing Outlook
mail messages and posts, can now handle all kinds of Outlook items.
Bynari, known to the Outlook and Exchange Server community for its
work on the TradeXCH UNIX client for Exchange Server, designed
InsightConnector for organizations with as few as 25 users and as
many as tens of thousands. InsightConnector can turn an IMAP server
into a full platform that lets you use Outlook to share data
through both individual mailbox folders and public folders.

InsightConnector installs as an Exchange client extension, so
it’s compatible with all versions of Outlook. The connector maps
the IMAP folders in a user’s mailbox to a Personal Folders (.pst)
file on the local machine and synchronizes the .pst file with the
server folders either on demand, or when Outlook starts and shuts
down. Although Outlook doesn’t typically let you use an IMAP
account as the default information store (which is where the
default Inbox, Contacts, and other folders reside), that rule
doesn’t apply here because Outlook sees the InsightConnector-
enabled .pst file as a .pst file, not as an IMAP account. As a
result, items synchronized from the IMAP account to the .pst folder
work like Outlook items. Tasks and appointments fire reminders.
Contacts appear in the Outlook Address Book. Sent messages appear
in the Sent Items folder, and items you delete appear in the
Deleted Items folder. However, depending on the IMAP server,
Outlook default folders such as Contacts and Calendar might not
appear on the same level as the Inbox, but instead as subfolders of
the Inbox. This oddity results from a server-permissions
restriction that governs where a user can create new IMAP folders,
but it doesn’t affect the functionality of the Outlook folders.

The real benefit comes from using InsightConnector with IMAP
accounts on a server that supports folder-level ACLs, such as
Bynari’s InsightServer or the open-source Cyrus IMAP server. With
such a back end, users can share their IMAP mailbox folders with
other InsightConnector users on the same server and access any
folders that other users have shared. InsightConnector synchronizes
those folders in other users’ mailboxes to the local .pst file so
that users can work with them offline. (Exchange doesn’t support
access to other users’ folders in its implementation of offline
folders.) InsightConnector also lets you create public calendar,
contacts, and other special Outlook folders that work like regular
Outlook folders.”

Complete
Story