Linux adoption by small and medium-sized businesses is being held back by the lack of an open source groupware server that's easy to install and configure. SMBs will see little cost advantage from using Linux after adding in the cost an enterprise groupware product. But this problem may soon be a thing of the past, with the recent launch of the Hula project. Hula is an ambitious, open source project jump-started with more than 200,000 lines of code donated from Novell's NetMail product.
Hula provides:
* Email, with the option to share folders
* Web, POP3, and IMAP mail access
* Calendaring with shared calendars
* Browser-based administration
* The ability to support 200,000 registered users per server with up to 50,000 simultaneous connections
Although Hula is not yet production-ready, its NetMail foundation code provides Hula with a tremendous amount of functionality right now. I recently put Hula to the test to evaluate its prospects for small businesses in need of groupware.
