Everyone always talks of an "Office" killer, or how something might come along and supplant Microsoft's dominance by Exchange and Windows Server. I don't think this will come anytime soon from the free or open-source crowd. Instead, I think it should come from Google.

A big reason lots of businesses can't or won't move to a gmail/gcalendar collaboration system is because everything would then sit on Google's servers. This becomes a liability risk for the business. But what if you could have Google's offerings running on your own server in your own datacenter?

What if Google offered their initial collaboration tools (email, calendar, contacts, tasks) as an installable suite? They could offer it as a package to run on a linux server, or even offer an appliance like their search appliance. Stick it in your rack, hook it up, configure, and you're set! I think companies would flock to this if it was a reasonable substitute for the Exchange setup. It would be perfect if they opened it up to allow IMAP and/or POP3 access, too, so users could use desktop clients as well. Google, are you listening?

Well thanks for that enlightening suggestion, however, i don't think you have thought this through properly.
From a programmers point of view your idea creates lots of problems google does not need.
Google has several massive money making products without ever having to create software that runs on any machine (i.e. their products are all web based). Any programmer will tell you that web based software from one server to another is hassle, let alone creating software for every different type of Server and OS. Going down that road is stupid as it means Google would have to invest massive amounts of money in R & D which at present it doesn't have to as it already has a great business model that does not involve Server/Desktop applications, they have even created a rival office application that is web based.

If its not broke don't fix it, i think your just annoyed that you have to pay so much for exchange which i definatly agree with

Thanks
mattmoo

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