Exchanging Outlook for Ximian? Here's how

I also had an occasional error saying that the system could not connect to the Exchange server. Some initial investigation as to what was causing the problem leads me to believe it is the equivalent of Outlook's Network Problems Are Preventing… error message in Outlook 2002 when using Exchange 2000 and having connectivity problems. Figure O shows the Evolution error message.

Profiles
The Ximian Evolution Client with the Exchange Connector does a good job of remembering profiles for each user. In fact, it does a little better job than Outlook does in Windows. With Evolution, the profiles are kept per user on the Linux operating system, so each user has his or her own Exchange settings (server, username, and preferences in the application) kept to each account on that machine.

Non-Windows client environments
The Ximian Evolution application is definitely more robust than Outlook Web Access, but not quite as useful or integrated as the full Outlook client. However, if there are power users running Linux/Unix desktops in your organisation (in the graphic arts department, for example), this application should be considered.

Additionally, because Linux/Unix works well in a multi-user setup, you could easily set up Evolution on a Linux system (along with other basic applications, such as word processing, spreadsheets, Web browsers, and file managers in a Linux/Unix GUI) and then use terminal computing or thin-client computing (over Citrix MetaFrame or Canaveral iQ, for example) to deliver a fully functional desktop to most computing environments, including other Linux/Unix distributions not supported by Evolution.

Figure O
Evolution sometimes runs into problems with Exchange connectivity and provides this error message.

Download the Evolution manual
Learn more about working with Ximian Evolution and integrating with mail data sources other than an Exchange server by checking out the online manual for the Evolution client.

Final word
The Evolution client offers administrators and savvy users an additional option for connecting to an Exchange mailbox. While not as full-featured as the standard Outlook client, Evolution and its Exchange Connector do provide more functionality than Outlook Web Access for users who run Linux/Unix on their desktops