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Caldera Volution Messaging Server: A Product Review

May 04, 2002  By Hans-Cees Speel
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One step closer to a killer app for corporate calendaring.
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Re: Caldera Volution Messaging Server: A Product Review

Anonymous's picture
Submitted by Anonymous on Wed, 05/08/2002 - 02:00.

I have been running Lotus Domino/Notes on a SuSE server since September 2000 without incident. Lotus/IBM has not released a Linux client, but I was able to avoid Exchange/Outlook in an otherwise NT environment. By using Linux I saved on another NT server license with an expensive server as well.

Re: Caldera Volution Messaging Server: A Product Review

Anonymous's picture
Submitted by Anonymous on Tue, 05/07/2002 - 02:00.

Well we're happy with Joydesk 2.6 - maybe you had one of the early versions?

On scale - it's available in two versions, one for SMBs (10 users on a very small server, up to 1000 users or so a large server) the other is for ISPs (I see Qwest, Bell South International and ABS-CBN are listed as ISP customers) with many many more users. So most SMBs have lots of room to grow.

On support - it's a commercial product so there isn't endless free support. But there aren't any fully integrated open source alternatives that go even close to Exchange Server for a typical SMB yet. (But one day there will be :).

Overhead - the latest version isn't xbase - it has integrated into it the SQL open source database from Borland called Interbase (http://www.interbase.com) and it seems very quick. eg. at doing searches on a few thousand messages, etc.

Migration - we can use an IMAP mail client to move mail folders to or from Joydesk. Also I understand we should be able to suck any valuable data out of the SQL database ... if we ever need to!

Re: Caldera Volution Messaging Server: A Product Review

Anonymous's picture
Submitted by Anonymous on Tue, 05/07/2002 - 02:00.

Just stay away from joydesk!!!

I still have nightmares about it... in few words:

* doesn't scale at all

* bad...really bad support unless you show them money!

* if you grow with it... you will live a true nightmare trying to migrate to anything after that.

closed source!.... you cannot change anything!

* a lot of file overhead: 1 dir/user * 1 dir/year * 1 dir/month * 3 dirs (html,eml,tmp) * 1 file/msg

* it uses xBase (.dbf) files for data storage... imagine the corruption/reindexing nightmare as you grow!! specially when each cgi (a lot of them) access them simultaneously and the users hits STOP on their browsers a lot.

...and they even have the nerve to sell an *ISP* version!

Re: Caldera Volution Messaging Server: A Product Review

Anonymous's picture
Submitted by Anonymous on Mon, 02/03/2003 - 03:00.

I fully agree with this writers comments regarding JoyDesk. We have had nothing but problems with their 2.6 product. Our company paid for 2 years phone and web support and have been very disapointed. They do not return calls, they do not even respond to the web based help desk tickets we have entered into their system. We currently have a half dozen tickets they have not responded to.

We have also had to rebuild the backend database nearly a dozen times in just a years time due to corruption problems.

Their syncronization product to sync with a Palm device or to Outlook is nothing but a headache. If you have anything other than a Palm device forget it. If you have a newer version of the Palm os, too bad. Shall I go on?

My recomendation, look elsewhere for your groupware needs.

Re: Caldera Volution Messaging Server: A Product Review

Anonymous's picture
Submitted by Anonymous on Sun, 05/05/2002 - 02:00.

Caldera has a nice product. Put but Hans-Cees fails to mention another great Linux alternative to Exchange - Joydesk (http://www.joydesk.com). Joydesk is also less expensive, easy to install on either the more common **Red Hat** or Caldera and supports Outlook Calendar and Address book synchronization. It will also sync with the Palm and supports WAP!!!! Yahoo!

Re: Caldera Volution Messaging Server: A Product Review

Anonymous's picture
Submitted by Anonymous on Tue, 05/07/2002 - 02:00.

Just stay away from joydesk!!!

I still have nightmares about it... in few words:

* doesn't scale at all

* bad...really bad support unless you show them money!

* if you grow with it... you will live a true nightmare trying to migrate to anything after that.

closed source!.... you cannot change anything!

* a lot of file overhead: 1 dir/user * 1 dir/year * 1 dir/month * 3 dirs (html,eml,tmp) * 1 file/msg

* it uses xBase (.dbf) files for data storage... imagine the corruption/reindexing nightmare as you grow!! specially when each cgi (a lot of them) access them simultaneously and the users hits STOP on their browsers a lot.

...and they even have the nerve to sell an *ISP* version!

Re: Caldera Volution Messaging Server: A Product Review

Anonymous's picture
Submitted by Anonymous on Sat, 05/04/2002 - 02:00.

I setup an email/calendar/filestore for a small company using phpgroupware, cyrus imap and postgresql. It rocks! and is totally free. What is nice about it is that being web based, it doesn't matter what system or software you have as long as you can browse the web. I hope that products such as VMS and phpgroupware contiue to improve. The stranglehold that microsoft enjoys at our expense can choke the life out of small to medium sized businesses.

Re: Caldera Volution Messaging Server: A Product Review

Anonymous's picture
Submitted by Anonymous on Sat, 05/04/2002 - 02:00.

This is hilarious. I set up an email/calendaring system for a dot bomb company where I used to work. It happened that I used most of the same stuff including LDAP. Interesting how many companies are moving into this direction and hopefully someone will combine this approach to groupware with a decent OSS virus scanner.

Kudos to Caldera or anyone else that moves in this direction!

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