[Dovecot] IMAP and Outlook XP Contacts

[vmstech]

Hi - My attempt to answer this is as much an attempt to gain clarity
before I head down this same path -  so am keen to be corrected here,
but...

1) Providing a contact list is, is NOT a feature of any mail serving
protocol, imap or pop (inspite what can  apparently be extracted from
courier with suitable wizardry and $)

2) It is a capability and legit use of an LDAP directory type server

3) This is how both ms exchange and open-Xchange and probably many other
collaboration/groupware servers essentially achieve this?

4) Using LDAP can also work _WITHOUT_ the whole groupware 'thing' in
between - if the client can do ldap speak

5) Outlook can do ldap speak with various degrees of effectiveness
depending on the version and the degree to which that version is
standards compliant - there are work arounds to get outlook speaking to
openLDAP correctly (I stumbled on to this as part of someone discussing
this
prob:http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;325314)

6)It should there for be possible outlook to get contacts from  openLDAP
-without purchasing any black magic, but probably with a little jigery
pokery

Thanks for any coments and hope this gives some direction for WLG
Glenn

On Sat, 2006-02-18 at 18:41 -0600, Will L Givens wrote:
> I asked some cats in IRC's #linuxhelp chan and they stated that it's not
> supported under regular IMAP, that I would need something like OpenExchange
> or Open-Xchange in order to get that portion to work.
> 
> After googling around, that's when I noticed there aren't that many free
> alternatives, the few that are, are so limited and restricted to i386
> machines only [closed source unless you pay].  Will L G
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: dovecot-bounces at dovecot.org [mailto:dovecot-bounces at dovecot.org] On
> Behalf Of Charles Marcus
> Sent: Saturday, February 18, 2006 5:57 PM
> To: dovecot at dovecot.org
> Subject: Re: [Dovecot] IMAP and Outlook XP Contacts
> 
> Marcus Rueckert wrote:
> > On 2006-02-18 16:19:58 -0600, DiskMan wrote:
> >> I was wondering, does Dovecot's IMAP server hand Outlook XP's contact
> lists?
> >> I tried to enter a contact on my IMAP server and received an error from
> >> Outlook stating that the Contacts formatting was too complex and thus
> >> couldn't be saved.
> >>
> >> I went ahead and swung my box over to MailDir and scrapped Sendmail for
> >> Postfix [for maildir support], I was wondering, would this issue
> continue?
> >> In other words, by swinging over to MailDir, would Dovecot be able to
> handle
> >> Outlook's Contacts information? Will L G
> 
> > contacts via imap? oO
> 
> Apparently 'tis possible. From the Courier-IMAP list:
> 
> "Good news, everyone!" -- Prof. H. Farnsworth
> 
> Insight Connector for Courier-IMAP is a commercial plugin for Microsoft 
> OutlookT that allows native Outlook groupware capabilities using 
> Courier-IMAP. Outlook users can perform tasks typically available only 
> when using the Exchange server, including folder sharing. Some of the 
> features include folder sharing, public folders sharing, 
> appointments/tasks scheduling, real-time data management, calendar 
> sharing and other collaborative tasks.
> 
> A trial version of Connector can be downloaded from 
> http://courier.bynari.net. This software is supported by Bynari.
>