Re: [SAGE] Pointers for developing needs assessment for enterprise messaging?

[Chuck Yerkes <chuck+sage@snew.com>]

> From my references list:
>      * Corporate Time - now the company name is Steltor
>        http://www.steltor.com/
>        http://www.cst.ca/prod/index.html
>      * Netscape http://help.netscape.com/products/server/calendar/ which
>        is apparently Corporate Time in disguise.
....

The calendar that was netscape's calendar has become (and is being
developed) by Steltor.  Think of it as a continuation, not a copy.

The ideal would be something that required little change for the
users.  That might suggest Outlook.  Given the LONG and REGULAR
list of exploits aimed at the apparently amaturish security model
used by Outlook (Outbreak, lookOut, etc), perhaps that's a wrong
approach.  On the other hand, Evolution (for GNOME) has a nice
feature match for Outlook and doesn't seem to run just about
any executable that is sent to it.

So nailing down an actual list of requirements comes to mind.
What do the users actually use?  Paying the (gartner estimate
of) $30/user/month for Groupware (Notes, Exchange, etc) MAY
be worthwhile, but I rarely see places that use these tools
for much more than mail and scheduling.

1) mail - okay, IMAP and SMTP cover this nicely.
2) scheduling - in "Internet mode" apparently Outlook does what
   Evolution does as uses a Free/Busy server.
3) calendaring - a bit more extensive that scheduling.
4) discussions lists (er, internal newgroups?)
5) shared document management

Now, a first question: do users need a single tool to do these?
I have a calendar that I use just fine.  It's not related to my
mail client.  My life works just fine.

It's been sad to see the continuing demise of Netscape's
products.  I had once done a demo of Mail and Calendaring and
Newgroups and LDAP for my company; showing them all on FREE
tools and doing it on a Mac, a Windows and a Unix desktop.
It worked and it was inexpensive per user.  It needed work,
but Netscape had promise.  Now Sun/iPlanet is dropping Linux
support for LDAP (perhaps it doesn't sell enough sparc hardware).

Groupware is being recognized as a HUGE cost hole and there
is a lot of activity in the Unix world to meet the parts that
are actually used.  I know the products mentioned, I also know
that there's a bunch of stuff coming out in the next couple
quarters that do it better and better.

It would be nice to have something so that Outlook users can
just use their clients without change and have it backed by Unix
services that actually scale.  It won't stop viruses - those
are generally caused by Outlook at the desktop it runs on, but it
will stop the need to have a Windows box for every 800 users (plus
several infrastructure support machines just to run a Windows
Network).  I'd MUCH rather see a 4-6 way Linux box or Sun running
IMAP, and Some calendaring with a webmail front end available
for roving people.  Including LDAP, DNS and firewall, a rack
full of machines should be able to serve most sites with 25000
users with redundancy.