However, there's another side to this: What about people using Entourage with non-Exchange groupware servers? For example, there are two groupware servers that support Entourage directly that run on the Mac--Kerio Mail Server and XC Connect. I don't know the details of XC Connect's support, but I know that Kerio supports HTTP-DAV for Entourage, which lets Entourage talk to Kerio like it was an Exchange server. With Outlook on the Mac, (or the ), that won't work. Kerio will have to support Exchange Web Services to talk to Outlook as anything but a POP/IMAP server. Calendaring will be using .ics files. Joy. Unless Outlook Mac supports MAPI, and those server manufacturers write a Mac-based Web Services connector for a single product. That isn't released yet.

True, there is CalDAV, which is supported by most groupware servers on the Mac. Apple, Kerio, Zimbra, and Communigate Pro all support CalDAV, and it's a useful protocol for calendaring. However, we don't know if Outlook on the Mac will support it, although given Microsoft's attitude towards CalDAV since its inception----I'm not holding my breath.

So for a certain subset of Mac users in the enterprise, who only talk to Exchange 2007 and up, and need more than what Apple may provide in or for people who want a unified e-mail/contact/calendar/task client and have no need of group calendaring and only need POP/IMAP/SMTP for e-mail, then Outlook on the Mac will be a good fit. For everyone else... who knows?

I think the answer might be "either use Exchange 2007 or later, get your server vendor to support yet another MS-only connection protocol, or use another groupware client." I hope not, because in my experience, the majority of Mac users fall somewhere in between those two groups I described above, and they're starting to look like the group that will make do with either whatever version of Office they're using now, or they'll find something else. Face it, most of the SMB market doesn't need Exchange. Something like Apple's offerings, or Kerio works fine for them.

It affects me directly, because my company uses Kerio, and it's a solid groupware server. It affects me personally, even more so, because I really like Entourage. I like the fact that it has better rules, mailing list management, scheduling, and (ironically) a better and more reliable AppleScript implementation than Mail, iCal, and Address Book combined. I like the strong integration that I get with Entourage as opposed to the "sorta" integration I get with three apps. I like having it all right there in one place. I've been using Entourage since it first came out--before if you count betas. I live in that app.