Comments on: Exchange Server 2007, Mail.app and Safari

By: myname

myname — Mon, 09 Jul 2007 18:28:19 +0000

Entourage is supposed to work but only with FBA. Under many common scenarios, form based authentication will not work. This version of exchange is still beta as many other common functions cannot be done without exchange SP1 beta…. due to be released on the 24th of July. Wait another year or two until the bugs are gone.

By: Jaron Brass

Jaron Brass — Thu, 17 May 2007 08:57:00 +0000

I second Scott Frazer’s observations. My organization recently upgraded to Exchange 2007 from Exchange 2003, and it totally hosed Mail.app in terms of its Exchange support and IMAP as well. I’ve had to start using Thunderbird instead. In addition, GroupCal from Snerdware doesn’t yet support Exchange 2007, which, putting it mildly, sucks… I’ve told coworkers to just come get me when its time for a meeting, since I have no native calendar support on my Mac any more, and absolutely refuse to use Entourage until it goes Universal.

By: Scott Frazer

Scott Frazer — Mon, 19 Feb 2007 07:34:42 +0000

I’m not sure how well they tested Apple’s mail.app over IMAP, as it seems to fail pretty regularly. It will start downloading headers, then freeze. Frequently you can’t retrieve message details from the server either.

By: Tim Gaden

Tim Gaden — Wed, 10 Jan 2007 07:14:16 +0000

@Andy. Thanks. I didn’t know that. The Canadian journos writing the piece seemed to careful and credible!

@DAG, I”m not so sure. Of course the iPhone is an amazing thing, but it still going to need to talk to Exchange Servers. What client to you think we saw in the iPhone yesterday? A cut-down version of Apple Mail? Or something else. I’m still trying to work it out.

If the former, then the problems will remain. If the latter, who knows?

By: DAG

DAG — Tue, 09 Jan 2007 20:04:39 +0000

I think the new Phone is going to erase these problems for many users. Having Google & Yahoo on board and full integration with OS X is going to change the game. Millions of new iPhone users will also be XP & VISTA users.

By: Andy

Andy — Tue, 09 Jan 2007 19:31:42 +0000

Entourage 2004 (11.2+) supports these features with Exchange 2000, 2003, and 2007. Evolution supports some of these features as well. There are differences between Evolution’s and Entourage’s support–but the underlying technology is the same (WebDAV).

By: Tim Gaden

Tim Gaden — Tue, 09 Jan 2007 14:42:07 +0000

Andy, thanks for taking the trouble to post.

You have the jump on me, I’m afraid. I have no experience with Exchange Server at all.

Are you saying that Entourage 2004 supports these features when used with Exchange Server 2007?

(And–by implication–that Evolution does too?)

By: Andy

Andy — Tue, 09 Jan 2007 14:39:26 +0000

The article is factually inaccurate–Entourage supports shared calendars, contacts, and messages as well as group versions of each via public folders. The way I read this, it appears they used an “older” version of Entourage (e.g. Office X). All of these features have been in Entourage since the release of 2004 and it’s following service packs.

While Mail is a capable Exchange client, it’s nowhere near full featured as Entourage when it comes to Exchange-specific capabilities. A more straightforward comparison would be to tier Mac Exchange clients on two levels: more robust (those that go beyond IMAP) = Entourage and Evolution and those that do the basics (typically just IMAP) = Mail, Thunderbird, etc. Where you end up on that tier is based on your needs and usage of Exchange, and only then, can you begun to make reasonable comparisons.