Comments on: Exchanging Apple

By: rick gregory

rick gregory — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 01:55:49 +0000

Brad,

Although I like my Macbook very much, if you need first class Exchange integration, the Mac just isn't an option. You can get mail and do the basics from it but there's just nothing comparable to Outlook for connecting to Exchange on the Mac.

I think your options really are three-fold:

1) Use Mail and iCal to connect to Exchange and accept the limits of that way of working.

2) Break away from Exchange and use something that does what you need but doesn't lock you into a platform.

3) Use Windows.

The part of me that bought an original Mac and loves them is jumping up and down saying "Option #2!!!" But only you can gauge the practicality of that. Frankly, in your case, I'd probably use Windows unless you're contemplating a move from Exchange for other reasons. At the end of the day, computers are just a tool, not a religion...

By: Peter

Peter — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 01:55:49 +0000

Well, that's what happens when you buy hype instead of the tools you can use.

By: troy_lerner3794

troy_lerner3794 — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 01:55:49 +0000

Brad-

So, what's your advice for someone contemplating a move to Mac? When on the computer, I think 35% of my time is in Outlook (email and meetings. no tasks.), 10% in Excel, 20% in Word, 20% in Firefox, 10% in PPT, 5% in AIM.

By: Darren Ehlers

Darren Ehlers — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 01:55:49 +0000

Zimbra – Full Mac integration and looks exactly like an exchange server

By: jim122

jim122 — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 01:55:49 +0000

We are also heavy exchange (and blackberry) users and three of us switched to a Mac in the past few months. Entourage is terrible. freezes on our machines. Parallels was too slow to run outlook. We have all removed parallels and installed VM Fusion which runs much faster. We all run Outlook in Fusion and it is sufficient.

I seem to spend much of my day on a browser and IM and loved the 17in mac book as a great widescreen notebook that is not too big to carry around. Its a beautiful machine.

By: indiekid

indiekid — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 01:55:49 +0000

It's too bad to hear about your switching problems. I too wish that my BlackBerry tasks synced up to my Entourage. I've been dying to try out Entourage 2008 for quite some time as it does fix a lot of things that 2004 has lacked…things like Out of Office notification and a much much better Calendar function.

As much as I'm not a Microsoft fan, they sure did it right by Exchange Server

By: bfeld

bfeld — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 01:55:49 +0000

At this point, I'd say "don't switch."

By: peter

peter — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 01:55:49 +0000

I was going through that process of updating my old compaq [T61/ubuntu] when a friend of the family suggested getting a bunch of macs at a discount

By: ross2308

ross2308 — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 01:55:49 +0000

Darren please describe "full mac integration" – with what client tools? What (other than its web interface) is going to sync that data into an application like Outlook? The answer, unless I'm missing something, is nothing. Sure we can use Mac Mail and iCal but what about tasks (which are huge for Brad and I). Zimbra may fix the backend need for Exchange but not the frontend client solutions.

By: jim122

jim122 — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 01:55:49 +0000

Oh, Office for Mac sucks too in comparison too Windows version. Especially Excel. Word is fine (but I dont seem to to much more then edit templates and print), and powerpoint is passable but I still turn to my Windows desktop to do heavy editing.

By: jl_brunet3806

jl_brunet3806 — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 01:55:49 +0000

Try to boot up in a Windows partition on your Mac if it's Intel-based. Works great in my Macbook Pro.

If you want to be able to use both Windows and Mac OSX environments at the same time you'll need to buy another piece of software (either Parallels or VMWare Fusion). I use the later and am very happy with it.

By: Alan K

Alan K — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 01:55:49 +0000

Yeah, exchange was my biggest hurdle when switching my work machine. I had to run Parallels on a separate monitor for it to be worthwhile. But that ended up as a pretty decent solution.

MS Office apps also suck on the Mac. I kept all my powerpoint, word docs, and spreadsheets on Parallels. And then there is printing from Parallels which is hit or miss. I am not sure it is worth the hassle. The Mac does excel at many things and is a great platform for web developers.

By: rickgregory

rickgregory — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 01:55:49 +0000

The Mac is a great platform for many things, even productivity software. But Brad et al have a prior committment to Exchange. If they were starting from scratch, there's a myriad of ways they could go (I'm loving GMail with my Remember The Milk tasks integrated)... but they're not.

You can do everything on the Mac you can on Windows even in terms of office software (I'm weird, I like Office 2004 on the Mac), but when a baseline requirement is top notch Exchange integration... it's just not worth it.

Yes, you can run VMware... but if you're going to spend a significant part of your day in Windows, why are you buying a Mac?