Microsoft Exchange Server's ability to let users easily share information using a familiar structural metaphor—mail and folders— contributed to its early success. However, as Exchange has grown to meet the needs of the largest organizations (and increased in cost), it's surrendered the simplicity that let smaller organizations with fewer technical resources use it comfortably. Other groupware products now meet the needs of small-to-midsized businesses (SMBs), and I review three: MDaemon 9.0.1 Pro from Alt-N Technologies, Ipswitch Collaboration Suite 2006 Premium Edition from Ipswitch, and Kerio MailServer 6 from Kerio Technologies.

In comparing these products, I focused on workgroup collaboration features and other aspects I think will interest systems administrators. You'll find additional information in the accompanying feature comparison table (Table 1).

All three of these strong products support SMTP, POP3, and IMAP servers. Each product has antispam features, plus security features that include Bayesian and content filtering, blacklists and whitelists, dial-up connection support, and reverse DNS lookups. All support list servers, LDAP for contacts, attachment blocking by file type, email address aliases, and server-based client email handling rules. Finally, each product's core groupware and collaboration feature sets worked well. Where these products differ is in their specific feature sets and how effectively they are implemented.

MDaemon 9.0.1 Pro
MDaemon 9.0.1 Pro from Alt-N Technologies is a mail server with group collaboration features that you access through a Web interface. I reviewed MDaemon with the AntiVirus 2.2.9 add-on and Outlook Connector 2.1.1, an add-on that lets Microsoft Outlook 2000 and later use MDaemon's collaboration features. Outlook Connector requires the installation of an Outlook add-on on the client.

Installing MDaemon on the server is routine. It installs with its own Web server to support WebAdmin (its Web-based interface) and WorldClient (its Web-mail program). However, you can choose to use Microsoft IIS or another Web server for WebAdmin and WorldClient. The default installation lets WebAdmin and WorldClient coexist with IIS by assigning them nonstandard IP ports. WorldClient supports SyncML, a standard for synchronizing calendar and contact data on mobile devices. You can use WorldClient on the client system to install the client-side Outlook Connector, although you might prefer to place the installation file on a network share. The client-side Outlook Connector installs as a new MAPI provider.

MDaemon Pro is loaded with features. I started my testing by creating several new email users. I used both administrative interfaces: the console GUI and WebAdmin. As Figure 1 shows, the GUI is heavily populated with tabs, buttons, and menu items. You can carry out all configuration options with just a few keystrokes. The WebAdmin interface is convenient, but some of the GUI functions, such as the ability to set a folder type when creating a public folder, aren't available. I used both interfaces to create a series of public folders and found the console GUI easier to navigate.

MDaemon's collaboration features support all of Outlook's familiar folder types: Mail, Contacts, Calendar, Tasks, Notes, and Journal. Outlook 2000 displayed the standard-Outlook folders, and Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 also worked as expected. You can restrict use of the Outlook Connector to specified accounts or allow open access. Administrators can create hierarchies of IMAP public folders. You can also let Outlook users create new folders under specific existing public folders. If you assign an email address to a public folder, MDaemon places mail sent to that address by authorized users into the associated folder.

You can set MDaemon to monitor an Active Directory (AD) domain, creating and optionally disabling mail accounts as it detects changes in AD. This feature would simplify administration, but I didn't test it.

I did test sharing private folders, which is particularly well implemented in MDaemon, given the IMAP structure. MDaemon lets users assign private folder access to other users at a granular level. For example, you can let another user update and add items to the folder but not delete existing items. However, folders outside of Outlook Connector accounts can't be shared.

In testing MDaemon's free/busy server group scheduling functions, I had to manually configure the free/busy query string in Outlook. Under Outlook 2003, the free/busy function worked well. However, under Outlook 2000, the free/busy queries failed. I remembered that another product I tested required that Microsoft Web Publishing Wizard be installed on the client system to support free/busy features under Outlook 2000. Installing Web Publishing Wizard worked for MDaemon too, although I didn't find any mention of it in MDaemon's documentation.

All features worked well. However, I thought MDaemon took longer to implement than the other products, perhaps because it was the most configurable—and complex—of the three. MDaemon lacks one feature I wish it had: the ability to use named user groups to control folder access. Named groups save work when you want to grant a set of users access to several folders. If you have relatively little employee turnover and a simple public folder structure, however, you won't miss this feature.

Ipswitch Collaboration Suite 2006 Premium Edition
Ipswitch Collaboration Suite 2006 (ICS) expands the functionality of Ipswitch IMail Server by providing access to Outlook calendars and global address books and secure IM. I tested ICS Premium Edition, which came with Premium Anti-Virus Protection, Premium Anti-Spam, IMail 9.04, and WorkgroupShare 2.1.2, a Softalk product that allows shared access to public and private folders.

IMail is the heart of the system. It lets administrators choose one of three sources for the user IDs or passwords used to authenticate access to email and shared folders: Windows local user accounts, a proprietary IMail database, or another ODBCcompliant database.