FirstClass vs M$ Exchange

banana nut bread

Does anyone out there have experience with the current FirstClass product (Centrinity, used to be SoftArc)? It seems one of the "strangleholds" that M$ has over the Mac community and keeping it from being an "equal footing" corporate desktop is the accessibility of Exchange server - since the current version of Entourage is crippled.



So, I'm exploring the possibility of selling the FirstClass product as an alternative to Exchange. It seems to have everything you need, can even migrate users from Exchange, and even has a connector so the FirstClass and Exchange servers can talk to each other and share data. That makes the transition easier. The big plus is all the client access options for FirstClass - very cross-platform, allowing a company to have a varied desktop environment.



Any thoughts or experiences out there?

amorya

Well, I used it as a client on a dial-up BBS in 1994... it ran really well on a Performa 475, over a 2400 bps modem



Can't give you a really detailed analysis, 'cos I can't remember most of it! It seemed well designed to me, and it wasn't hard to use...



Amorya

dhagan4755

FirstClass works well for our school district. There are some aspects I don't like about it...but it's solid and works great on both Mac and Windows.



The aspects of it that I don't like is the terminology to describe various aspects of the application. For instance, they have a desktop too, and try explaining that at a faculty meeting when a portion of the staff aren't techno savvy. Plus there are aspect that are visible that aren't utitlized and should be which hangout there and can confuse new users.



Edit: When we were going to upgrade we were curious about Exchange. We tried it with the tech dept. staff over the course of 3 months and decided that it sucked.



[ 08-01-2002: Message edited by: Dave Hagan ]</p>