Fedora 11's Ace-in-the-Hole: Microsoft Exchange Interoperability
by Sam Dean - Jun. 03, 2009Comments (1)- Related Blog Posts
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As the upcoming release of Fedora 11 approaches--now slated for June 9th--it's starting to look like this new version could make a big difference for a lot of users and businesses. We reported on some of the more interesting features found in the Leonidas Preview, and now a number of other notable features are coming to light, including unprecedented interoperability with Microsoft Exchange. The interoperability features could have implications for many other Linux distributions.
"Red Hat is not going to let the Microsoft-Novell partnership dim its own prospects for interoperability," writes Paula Rooney on ZDNet. Fedora 11 will feature OpenChange, "an open source implementation of Microsoft's ubiquitous Messaging Application Programming Interface (MAPI)," Rooney writes.
Microsoft Exchange is a proprietary messaging and collaborative software product, central to how many enterprises manage e-mail, collaborative applications, messaging, and more. As noted on the Red Hat blog:
"The OpenChange implementation provides a client-side library which can be used in existing messaging clients to offer native compatibility with Exchange. Using the “libmapi” library, OpenChange allows clients such as Thunderbird, Evolution, KMail, and other open source applications to utilize the full range of MAPI functionality including messaging, shared calendars, contact databases, public folders, notes and tasks. All applications can now start speaking the same language, regardless of platform."
That is big news for many businesses. OpenChange is the first open source implementation of the MAPI protocol, and should allow businesses who want to standardize on free, open source e-mail, messaging and collaboration products to do so without ditching interoperability with Microsoft's platform. I expect that this type of interoperability will arrive in many major Linux distros soon, especially since Fedora is seen by many as a cutting-edge, proof-of-concept platform with relatively short life cycles between releases.
We covered several of the other notable features in Fedora 11 here. It looks like a release to watch.
