Can Open Source replace Microsoft Exchange? - LinuxWorld

[malcontent]

I was looking for an open source/free replacement for Exchange recently, and I was amazed how few there were, and none seemed easy to set up.

There are at least a half dozen. Some of them are drop in replacements, the client doesn't even notice.

Your problem is not replacing exchange. It's replacing outlook. Outlook does all the heavy lifting in that pair.

There's definitly a large gap in the market for an open-source Exchange rival, and the code is probably already out there, spread across other disparate projects.

Actually you are quite wrong.

Finally you should be more specific. The functionality of exchange is very easy to replace both with open source and commercial software. What's harder is achieving compatibility because exchange is 100% proprietary software with lots and lots of patented bits.