Andrew:
The Exchange interoperability one is, certainly. Which makes sense, I guess. It's not available yet (due early 2002) and will be priced at $69 ($599 for 10 pack, $1499 for 25 pack). Personally, I'm in favour of this: build a great free client, and then charge a "Microsoft tax" for those people that insist on hooking up to non-free groupware servers.
Can it really cut the mustard, though? It's little use doing this if it's not going to make money. If it's not open and there are bugs in it, are people going to blame the MS server or the small company's connector? While I know where we'd point the finger, I don't think your typical PHB would agree.
[...] Use the money to fund development of a decent free groupware server, perhaps.
Now that would be worth seeing.
I think Evolution *is* a case of doing one thing and doing it well. [...]
Reportedly, it's actually a gaggle of little bits with sometimes questionable cohesion and bad control over its components. Is having PIM and email in one location desirable? I find it quite helpful keeping them apart, although having better connectivity to the PIM would be very useful.
[...] As a matter of fact, I'm back to using the mail client I started off with in 1992, which is still the best IMHO :-)
Surely that's just the old cliche that "normal is whatever I'm used to". I don't think PINE is really where it's at any more. It shows it age in some ways and is still non-free, isn't it?