Multiple Address Books planned?

[Hibbelharry]

So it's again 2 Weeks and nothing beeing released, no status update being made neither any estimate nor a Roadmapupdate.

Based on these facts I think I'm not alone if I ask for a status update. Don't feel pressed to do a release if it's not ready, just give the people beeing around an estimation. That would be a real help.

Greetings !
Hibbelharry

[Hibbelharry]

*Bump*

Any News ? Any Status Update ?

[oliver.meimberg]

Statement from 09-03-2010:

Hallo,

the development for the 1.8er version is finished. I sent this version two weeks ago to some people for testing. [...] I guess it will be available end of the next week.

Best regards,
Sebastian

Still alive???

[Hibbelharry]

I'm again giving up on this currently. It's one thing when things take longer than expected, but this is getting ridiculous.

If a timeframe is setup to estimates of 4 Weeks fo finish some particular features or get rid of some showstopping bugs I'm telling my customers things should get finished in about a 3 month timeframe. We're now far from that for a lot of promises.
It's also some kind of gesture to the people out there to tell them something is going to take longer, but I can't see any real active communication or ongoing support here.

I recommended OX to some growing customers telling them it's able to grow with their companies. They might start with Thunderbird (which is quite cost effective in many terms) and that they're able to switch to Outlook later if they can afford it and need the functionality. This just won't work out when they don't trust the product anymore because of unmet schedules. Even if the tbird oxtender is no official product from the OX People there seems to be some tight relationsship between the projects, since OX hosts the supportforum and some other things which are in one or other way obvious.

A real life example: I setup Scalix Groupware for a customer about 3 Years ago. That customer started with the Community Edition and was quite happy using it. They had a decent Web Frontend and it worked well with Outlook for the people which wanted to use it as client. Two Years ago they bought Scalix SBE Edition with 25 licences which are by now entirely in use. Scalix did the same thing which happens here, promised things and raised expectations and didn't deliver for over a year. Currently they're most busy deleting angry posts from their forum instead of giving any answers. If there would have been some communication why they didn't meet their goals and what they're going to do next my customer would have bought at least 25 new licences in addition with new maintenance plans but now they're going to migrate to MS Exchange for my advice. Exchange isn't perfect as well and expensive but customers know what they get in a foreseeable future.
In another fact we're not able to recommend one different piece of software every other month to keep our business going.

I tend to be critical in terms of seeing MS Products as defacto Standards, I'm always looking for alternatives and I like the ideas and concepts of Open Source/Open Core Solutions. For us these alternatives are also able to position us as a independent and objective Integrator.

I really think the current state of things harms the Open-Xchange product.
People responsible for this mess or at least some knowledgeable guy should put in some clarification here.

I will go on to put my eyes on OX and see if things are going to work out, but I also began to track Sogo/OpenChange and friends currently. Anyone interested might be able to find a good alternative in there.

Greetings!
Hibbelharry

[Martin Heiland]

Hi,

i think you mix stuff up a bit. The OXtender for Thunderbird is maintained and developed by a third party, not Open-Xchange. As you have noticed we contribute some forum space for this addon, but thats it. Of course this does not change much for you at the current situation, but have you already tried to contact the developers of this addon directly?

Greetings

[oliver.meimberg]

I did try to contact sebastian kauss via xing several weeks ago, but i never got a reply. Also the trac site for this project is obviously closed.