Exchange Server 2007, Mail.app and Safari
Two journalists from ITWorld Canada have put 
Exchange Server 2007 through its paces, testing it with a variety of email clients and web browsers.
They discovered a lot of interesting things about the new software’s junk mail catching abilities and security, but what grabbed my attention was the performance of Mail and Safari.
Unsurprisingly, Exchange Server 2007 works best with Outlook 2007.
However other clients were also tested:
Exchange 2007 server is also open for use with other e-mail client access methods, such as Thunderbird (the e-mail counterpart to Firefox) and Microsoft’s older Mac Office e-mail product called Entourage. This subpar access does not include any of the groupware-focused features, such as shared contact, mail, files/folders, group calendars and Microsoft SharePoint services.
The accessibility afforded for Exchange 2007 clients is quite varied. Obtaining simple e-mail access through standard POP3 and IMAP protocols across all clients was easy in our tests.
We used a number of e-mail client applications successfully, including Thunderbird (under Linux , MacOS, and Windows XP/Vista Ultimate), Apple Mail, and Netscape clients all ran successfully and flawlessly.
Good news for Mac users trapped in a Windows work environment. We are still second class citizens, but at least we can communicate with other workers, albeit at a reduced level.
They also tested Exchange Server 2007’s web-based mail service, Office Web Access (OWA) browser, and found that it “worked well” with Safari and Firefox.
The test revealed an odd security flaw:
The OWA browser application when connecting to Exchange 2007 does not support the option to suppress externally referenced content (usually pictures) that are situated on a Web site or other Internet source, letting the mail sender record that the content have been seen/read in the e-mail. This inability to suppress rich (and revealing) content is disturbing, as it leaves this security measure to be handled by third-party applications.
The article is three pages long. Subsequent sections discuss Exchange Server’s spam catching features and other security failings.
Related posts
January 10th, 2007 at 1:39 am
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.
January 10th, 2007 at 1:42 am
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?)
January 10th, 2007 at 6:31 am
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).
January 10th, 2007 at 7:04 am
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.
January 10th, 2007 at 6:14 pm
@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?
February 19th, 2007 at 6:34 pm
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.
May 17th, 2007 at 7:57 pm
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.
July 10th, 2007 at 5:28 am
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.