Fedora Beta to Offer Replacement for Exchange Server Messaging

Possible unlucky launch date aside, Fedora has planned numerous fixes and tweaks set to go live in the Apollo 13 beta on May 18, 2010. As noted in this report on The Register, one big change is that Fedora now includes a drop-in replacement for Microsoft's Exchange Server messaging and groupware.

"If thirteen is supposed to be an unlucky number, why tempt the Fates and launch the beta of a thirteenth version of a product on the thirteenth of the month - and on the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 13 mission to the Moon, which damned near killed its three astronauts? And particularly when you have code-named that release 'Goddard,' after the American father of modern rocketry?

"One big change is that Fedora now includes a drop-in replacement for Microsoft's Exchange Server messaging and groupware. Specifically, the development Linux includes the open source Zarafa groupware program, created by the Dutch company of the same name. So if you are feeling lucky, you can sneak into the data center and replace all of those Windows/Exchange licenses with the Fedora/Zarafa combination and test out how compatible it truly is with Microsoft's Outlook client. (If the end users don't notice, then tell the IT bigwigs how it costs half as much to support Zarafa as it does Exchange, according to the company)."

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