[Desktop_architects] Most wanted Application: Email

[Timothy D. Witham]

On Wed, 2005-12-21 at 17:35 -0500, Mike Shaver wrote:
> On 21-Dec-05, at 4:58 PM, Timothy D. Witham wrote:
> 
> >     1) Good sync with handheld devices.
> >  	  Phone, Blackbeary (sp?) and Plam or pocket PC
> 
> Evo does that in many cases, I thought, but yeah, I can totally see  
> that being a barrier.  Seems like something that is mostly client-side.
> 
    But not reliably - I've setup my Pilot about 5 times and still it
all goes away every once in awhile.   I've talked to other folks
who have the same sort of issues.

> >     2) Group calendaring including meeting scheduling.	
> > 		i..e.  I want to check if Tom, Bill, Linus and Buddy the wonder
> > 		       dog are available at 10:00 PM.
> > 	      This includes a laptop resyncing when it gets back to a
> >                connected state and the last know schedule being
> >               available on a server.
> 
> That's not email, but OK, I definitely believe that it's a barrier to  
> adoption.  Evo has that capability with Exchange now, though -- what  
> are the cases in which that breaks down?
> 
    It is to the corporate people.   It is important to remember who is
the customer.  They might not always be right in their definitions
but they are always the customer.

> (I have a harder time believing that OpenOffice was is a more  
> important "browser application or plug-in" to support than QuickTime,  
> Windows Media, or _Java_and_ActiveX_.  Is there a way to see what the  
> results look like if we limit to the set of respondents whose jobs  
> would indicate that they are specify/approve/purchase?)
> 
> >     3) Proxies for executives.   i.e. Setup an admin to be able to  
> > respond
> >         to the executive's mail so that it appears to be coming  
> > from the executive
> >         so the lower folks don't know that the executive doesn't  
> > read most of
> >         their own mail.
> 
> I must not be understanding this requirement, because that sounds  
> like the sort of thing that is done by setting up the admin's mail  
> client to point at the same IMAP account as the executives.  If  
> that's really the #3 issue, though, it sounds like we're in good shape.
> 

     It is sort of close but not the same.  The issue is the admin
setups the meeting and then responds as the admin.  What they
want is the admin to respond as the executive.

> >    This seems to be the problem as folks keep doing new clients  
> > when the
> > issues is the server side stuff.
> 
> I don't understand -- Linux desktop deployment is gated by there not  
> being open source servers on Linux for mail and calendaring?  Why are  
> those related?  The Linux desktop could deploy against Exchange/ 
> GroupWise/Notes/etc., no?
> 
      It is one of those things.  Well if I'm going to keep all of this
other stuff around I'm going to keep the desktop I know also.  
In short they don't see the whole move so it gives them the
easy way out of moving at all.   Strange but true.

> Thanks for the list, though -- what's the source of those pain  
> points?  From the comments in the survey?
> 

    From places like the LUAC and talking to large end user
CIO's. (I was at a conference two weeks ago with a big group
of these folks.   I haven't seen 90+ suits in a room in about
a decade.)

   But this is a big issue to them.

Tim

> Mike
-- 
Timothy D. Witham - Chief Technology Officer - wookie at osdl.org
Open Source Development Lab Inc - A non-profit corporation
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