After upgrading to Imail 8.10, like others here we are seeing horrible performance problems with IMAP4 and client problems.
Outlook 2000 is crashing with a GPF � apparently if you have mail folders nested more than 3 deep Outlook is unusable. Installing Office 2000 SP3 on hundreds of client PC�s is not as easy as it sounds and some of our clients are now in the midst of trying to do that. Even Outlook 2003 has severe performance problems with IMAP especially when moving messages between folders/accounts. What gives? Why such a backward step in Imail? After a little bit of sleuthing, I think I have found the answer which unfortunately, is even more discouraging. Buried in the Ipswitch 8.10 upgrade notice was the following �New add-on collaboration tools, available April 27, will help your organization work more effectively and quickly and easily distribute up-to-date information. Shared Calendaring, Free/Busy Scheduling and the Global Address List� After more searching on Ipswitch website and other places, I think I have the answer � Ipswitch is planning to support a �shim� module that emulates Microsoft Exchange. When the shim is loaded into Microsoft Outlook on the client PC, the user can access global address lists, shared calendars, and public folders on an external mail server as if the server is running Microsoft Exchange even though it really isn�t. The shim is called the �Bynari Insight Connector� and allows Outlook clients with the add-in installed to access mail servers running IMAP4/LDAP as if they were Exchange servers. So Ipswitch has made drastic internal changes to LDAP and IMAP in Imail to make it compatible with the Bynari module they plan to release later this month. This raises a lot of questions: 1. What happened to QA? When making such dramatic internal changes to a product, it should be extensively regression tested to make sure it doesn�t break existing customer configurations and to insure that performance is equal or better, NOT WORSE, than the current version. Apparently QA is either asleep at the wheel, laid off, or outsourced as very little testing was done for 8.10 given all the problems � functionality and performance we are seeing. 2. Who is running product planning? Why does Ipswitch feel that competing with Exchange is their future? If I want Exchange functionality, I don�t know about everyone else, but I would prefer to run the real Microsoft Exchange rather than a kludgy emulator shim (which is licensed/sold PER USER) that must be installed by the end-user and I�m sure will have �limitations�. Who�s going to go onsite and support all those end-user clients? Microsoft won�t touch them (unsupported 3rd party dll/add-in will be blamed for any problems) and as a hosting company we don�t offer onsite end-user support. 3. Why is the installed base being ignored? For the past 3 years or more the single most requested enhancement/new feature mentioned on these lists has been to increase the reliability/stability of Imail by allowing the use of NAS storage for mailboxes, multiple servers acting as one logical mail server, allowing webmail to run on it�s own server, etc. etc. I think that for the majority of Imail customers this is much more important than emulating Microsoft Exchange. Personally, and others may disagree, I do not have a problem with expecting to pay a higher price for �IMail Enterprise� to have these features. The reliability of our email servers is our #1 concern and in the past 4 years it is the only thing I have not seen any progress from Ipswitch at all. Some of these changes are not rocket science Comments strongly encouraged � whether you agree or disagree, tell Ipswitch what you think. To Unsubscribe: http://www.ipswitch.com/support/mailing-lists.html List Archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/imail_forum%40list.ipswitch.com/ Knowledge Base/FAQ: http://www.ipswitch.com/support/IMail/
