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I need a server application that runs on Linux with which you can use Outlook as frontend to send and receive email on windows, including sharing the address book when a user works on multiple computers.

Is there anything that works?

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depending on your requirements, you could always have you mail services farmed out as a managed service, i.e google.com/apps/intl/en-GB/business/… – The Unix Janitor Nov 6 '10 at 14:10

marked as duplicate by Michael Hampton, Kenny Rasschaert, dunxd, Ladadadada, voretaq7♦ Mar 26 at 17:19

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6 Answers

up vote 2 down vote accepted

If you do only want to replicate what you've described, then you can very easily split out the address books and the email. address books can easily be stored in a generic ldap server (i.e. you just tell Outlook to use a certain address book server), and past that email is merely handled by uber conventional MTA's, e.g. postfix for smtp and dovecot fort imap / pop3. Does sound like you actually need a big heavy like-for-like replacement.

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Yea it sounds like that, but it's merely for the family. Never mind those heavy-weight commercial solutions, I'm more of a leightweight guy. But maybe I'll try Zimbra OpenSource edition later. – Quandary Nov 6 '10 at 15:38
Zimbra OpenSource doesn't permit use of their Outlook connector, FYI. You'd need to buy one of their Network Editions. – Slartibartfast Nov 6 '10 at 19:41
OK, in that case I won't ever try Zimbra. – Quandary Nov 7 '10 at 11:35
up vote 4 down vote

To be pedantic, Outlook would be the frontend, not the backend.

To be helpful, probably the most full-featured product in this space is Zimbra, though some people are turned off by the open-core model.

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+1, for being pedantic. – Quandary Nov 6 '10 at 15:34
up vote 1 down vote

One of the most complete Exchange replacements I am aware of would be Open Exchange

As far as I remember it supports the following features:

  • Webmail
  • Classic MUAs (Outlook & Thunderbird)
  • Adressbook Sync & Adressbook Sharing
  • Calendaring
  • Document Management
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up vote 1 down vote

You also have Kerio

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up vote 0 down vote

zarafa works very well for me.

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We've been using the Network Edition of Zimbra for a few years now where I work. The Network Edition includes support for mobile phones (activesync) and includes a Outlook connector. We use the web client which is pretty rich. And the Desktop Zimbra Client for the laptops which may need access to their email offline.

The Outlook connector is a plugin for Outlook that turns the mapi communication into the native SOAP calls that Zimbra uses. I think they do this so that they only have to develop one communication protocol to the server. Make sense but it's not native Outlook support.

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