Early last month I attended a local user group for IT professionals who mostly specialize in the support of advertising and publishing organizations. Most, if not all of us, support Macs in Windows environments where Exchange is the de facto email server system but I was surprised to hear that one local business is experimenting with using Outlook for Windows with CrossOver Mac as a replacement for Entourage.
Marty Enerson is the Director of Technology for Martin Williams Advertising and founder of the Advertising IT Group (AITG) in the Twin Cities, an informal user group of administrators, technical analysts and "guys responsible for the graphics server" that meets every few months to discuss technical issues, problems and ideas. For our first meeting of the year Marty invited Jeremy White, Founder and CEO of CodeWeavers, Inc. (also a Twin Cities company), to demonstrate CrossOver Mac for the Intel Mac platform. During Jeremy's presentation Marty announced that not only was Martin|Williams using CrossOver Mac but testing using it with Outlook for Windows in lieu of Entourage. What!?
His reason is simple:
"Consistency. We have 200+ employees and having to support two different email programs is just not the best. One set of training docs, one thing we have to think about with upgrades. We also use Cisco VOIP and there is an Outlook plugin for it but not one for Entourage."
Marty also mentioned that they can not easily archive email with Entourage and can do it better with Outlook by dumping into .pst files.
Martin|Williams has been using Entourage since it was first released but so far about 10 users have the CrossOver Mac and Outlook setup. What's their reaction? Marty says, "They don't really care too much, as long as it works and they can send, receive and book meetings." He believes the results of his testing have been good but he's still "waiting for Crossover to be a little more stable or better." He added, "Crossover still has some bugs yet."
I'm intrigued that this setup offers virtually 100% Exchange Server compatibility for the cost of a CrossOver Mac license, which is about US$60.00, and that it's an option made possible because of Apple's switch to the Intel platform. This means Office for Windows, which includes Outlook, has the same potential to find its way to the Mac platform and possibly usurp Office:mac's throne. Office:mac has never had parity with Office for Windows but it has also never been developed or marketed as the Mac equivalent. End-users will have to decide if the pay-off for "consistency" is worth the trade-off for performance.
If you're a technology or support professional living in or near the Twin Cities area and are interested in attending one of the AITG meetings, please email me for information.
Comments (3)
Are you really surprised?
When my design company is all intel mac I would consider doing the same thing or maybe use parallels desktop. Entourage is simply not a good exchange client. Sorry, but that is my opinion.
Most missed features:
- warning when accepting a meeting when another meeting is planned
- auto accept meetings tentative
- instant information from meeting rooms
- out of office message
Kind regards,
Rogier Koek
Hi-
I'm setting up my Mac for Crossover to primarily use Outlook 2003.
When i went to Options to do the setup to connect it to my Exchange Server (hosted by mi8.com), it said to Exit Outlook and click on Mail icon in Control Panel.
I've done that on my PC before but have no idea how to do the setup on Mac, unless I set up Parallels and XP, which I'd rather not do since i like what i see with Crossover.
Any ideas?
I think I understand the problem you're running into: With CrossOver Mac you don't have a Control Panels folder. Correct?
Because I use so many Windows applications my need is for Parallels more than CrossOver Mac but I did a quick search of the CodeWeavers site and found something that should help. Have a look at this FAQ on their website http://www.codeweavers.com/support/docs/crossover-mac/faq#id2501233.
Thanks for posting and be sure to let us know what you find out.