Groupware

I was looking for a decent groupware capable of supporting both web access and conventional clients.

The crucial part is to allow group calendaring, preferably integrate with

SugarCRM as the CRM for the Enterprise;

Asterisk IP PBX as the Enterprise phone system;

IMAP mail server;

caldav if possible else at least ical support.

synchronising with mobile/handheld devices via Funambol

Better still if it supports Knowledgetree document management system.

We have thus far deployed Asterisk IP PBX system, IMAP server. SugarCRM is in the pipeline open to those who need to interact with the outside world. We do have Knowledgetree in 3 offices, acting as document repository with tight tracking on what goes in and out.

We are yet to implement caldav, of which I have tried the Apple ical server, work with limited success. The Apple ical server works well with Apple ical client, but not Thunderbird with Lightning as add on, or Sunbird.

Forgot to mention that Thunderbird will be replacing Outlook and Outlook Express from all desks, eliminating one important component from Microsoft.

Open Office will eventually be replacing MS Office in the mid term.

The effort is to streamline the cost of ownership and avoid cost associated with frequent software upgrade that forcing us to refresh our hardware.

In deed, most of the applications will eventually be moving to web based, eliminating the need to support individual stations as there shall be no business information stored in the local storage in time to come.

Back to groupware:

I have spent a great deal of time looking for a suitable candidate. Zimbra was top of the list. It looks promising but its hungry of resources making it less likely candidate for our case.

We need something decent, fast, lean and mean. We do not need bells and whistles that ended redundant.

Alternatively, Scalix seems to be a viable choice but I still prefer Scalable Open Groupware based on its features.

Others such as Citadel, egroupware, phppojekt (my favourate), Open-Xchange, even OBM, have been evaluated. Some fall short on the web interface, some do not support ical/icaldav, some insists that mail server to be provided as bundle instead of using the existing mail server, this poses problem for us migrating some 400 users' mail settings, plus 70% of them with IMAP, means transporting mailboxes from one server to another server become almost impossible without significant downtime.

to be continued....