Xandros + Microsoft Deal Gives Linux E-mail Server a Second Chance

In the latest stage of a collaboration that's looking more and more like it was planned to work out this way months ago, Microsoft announced today the extent of the intellectual property it's licensing to newly acquired Linux client Xandros. In addition to some systems management protocols, it's getting access to ActiveSync, a crown jewel of Microsoft IP that may come just in time to resuscitate Xandros' newest division.

At the time Xandros was signed on last June, it was only a principal producer of systems management tools for the Linux platform. But since then, it acquired e-mail server provider Scalix. Now, the combined entity will be receiving access to IP that could enable Scalix servers to communicate fully with mobile clients.

Throughout its eleven point releases, Scalix has endeavored to be at least as capable a mail server as Exchange, if not more so, while at the same time giving customers the option of using Outlook as their principal e-mail client. This was Scalix' original selling point.

A 2005 Scalix white paper touted its server product thus: "For web access, Scalix Web Access (SWA) revolutionizes the web mail experience with a rich functionality and usability that is virtually indistinguishable from a desktop email client...SWA is an AJAX application that provides a desktop-like experience on multiple platforms using multiple browsers. Users who do not use Internet Explorer are not penalized with a downgraded web mail experience as is the case with Outlook Web Access and Exchange."

Outlook Web Access (OWA) isn't really Microsoft Outlook, the e-mail client that ships with the Office suite, but rather a browser-based e-mail client with much of the look and feel of Outlook. While Scalix was touting the similarities of its SWA over OWA, it cleverly masked over one critical distinction: For Scalix messaging to be accessed by Windows Mobile-equipped handsets, it needed to be endowed with an add-on feature called the Scalix Connector. This enabled Scalix to use the ActiveSync resource synchronization protocol that Exchange uses.

Among Linux-based servers, this utility was the crown jewel that put Scalix above the others. As Linux Journal reviewer James Turner noted in March 2006, "For me, the killer feature is the Outlook connectivity...Until clients such as Evolution become better integrated with PDAs and other groupware technologies, many of us are going to be stuck with Outlook as a mail client, and only Scalix is offering a free solution that everything can talk to."

ActiveSync was first rolled out as an add-on for Exchange 2003, and has since been packaged as a principal component of Exchange Server 2007. Prior to that version's release, Microsoft had been developing ActiveSync protocol on a separate track, which meant IT departments could add new features by downloading upgrades just to the protocol. Keeping up with the protocol was a tough enough matter for Exchange customers; for a competitor whose goal was to maintain par without too much reverse engineering on its own part, it was even harder.

Add to that the fact that the Scalix server and Scalix Connector never seemed to be a good fit for one another, as evidenced by messages on the company's own support site.

Just last month, one long-time user wrote the company a sad farewell: "Goodbye and thanks for your efforts and help. Our company is now moving to an Exchange server. The latest problems with moving the bosses e-mail over to Scalix from our old POP3 server caused too many problems." Number one on his list of problems: "ActiveSync does not work reliably with the Scalix Connector."

In fact, you might think Scalix' support site was an intentional memorial to the headache that Scalix Connector was becoming for its customers.

Never one to miss an opportunity to kick an open wound, Microsoft's promotional literature for Exchange took note. In a white paper comparing ES 2007 to Scalix from the point of view of one customer, the Cambridge Health Alliance in Boston, Microsoft professed, "With the mobile synchronization technology ActiveSync, the Alliance will be able to provide employees with new ways to become productive while away from the office. Employees will be able to access their e-mail, calendars, and contacts by using mobile devices based on Microsoft Windows Mobile software. By comparison, Scalix requires third-party software for such mobile synchronization." The paper later added that the Alliance hadn't actually yet purchased any Windows Mobile devices.

Successive versions of Exchange kept making incremental changes to ActiveSync protocol. With Exchange 2003 SP2, Microsoft added a feature called "Direct Push," in which Windows Mobile devices would give encrypted "pings" to the e-mail server, and it would respond with just the new messages and other resources it had compiled for that user since the last such "ping."

Then came ES 2007, which added critical and highly-demanded support for HTML e-mail. As of last month, Scalix appeared to be a few ActiveSync versions behind, and unable to close the gap.

The alternative some users were suggesting would have been to scrap ActiveSync altogether, in favor of an open source synchronization construct called SyncML. Among its developers were some who considered it Microsoft's next tool for establishing imperial global domination.

"ActiveSync is the trick that Microsoft is using to power the mobile Internet, based on mobile widgets," wrote SyncML contributor Fabrizio Capobianco on his personal blog last year. "ActiveSync is not only on Windows Mobile devices. They are licensing it around like crazy. Symbian has licensed it. Nokia has licensed it. It is on Palm. They are playing with the hammer in their hands...How good is ActiveSync? Mediocre, as usual. It has been built for desktop synchronization over serial and USB. They extended it to over-the-air synchronization but it was not built for it. It is ugly. The Microsoft Direct Push technology is even worse. It drains the battery on the device and requires an IT Manager to expose Exchange on the Internet. Though, it is getting everywhere. Monopolies have some power."

But with alliances everywhere considering Windows Mobile devices, SyncML might not have an opportunity to gain a foothold unless a major e-mail vendor were to suddenly, openly support it.

Fast-forward to last June, and Xandros' covenant - inspired by the Novell/Microsoft deal - to cross-license IP with one another in exchange for promises never to take each other to court. Xandros' claim to fame is a highly regarded set of heterogeneous network management tools, which needed access to Windows protocols to retain stability with Vista and Windows Server 2008. The very next month following that covenant, Xandros purchased Scalix.

Now that you know the background, the text of Microsoft's announcement from this morning perhaps reads a little differently than it did before: "By licensing the Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync protocol and the Outlook Exchange Transport Protocol," the company stated, "Scalix Mail Servers can now synchronize data over wireless networks with Microsoft Exchange Server as well as various e-mail clients that use these and other Microsoft protocols."

Of course, Scalix had done that before...and had at one time done that quite well, but just not recently. The difference now appears to be that a later version of Scalix' commercial server will support ActiveSync directly, without all this Scalix Connector business.

But whether such a new feature will appear in the company's alternative, open source "community" version - which has only been available since August 2005 - is doubtful. The developer community at large will probably never have direct or even indirect access to protocols that companies such as Palm pay to license, or which otherwise require a complex covenant to attain.

So what does Microsoft gain from this? Besides the appearance of playing fairly with its peers - something it needs to keep up, especially for the European Commission - the company may have forestalled what might have been a possible avenue for ActiveSync's rival protocol, SyncML. It helps drive a wedge further between the community and commercial editions of a competitor's e-mail server product. And it opens up Windows Mobile devices to a broader group of potential customers. It's curious that all the chips fell into place at just the right time, to enable this to happen.