[OGo-Users] Install a SOGO theme in OGo

[Helge Hess]

On Apr 16, 2007, at 17:24, Raffael Luthiger wrote:
> a) Is the database schema the same for SOGo and OGo, or not? In  
> other words can I easily move from one application to the other?

Those are two questions.

a1) No. The database schemas are *completely* different. SOGo  
(Scalable OGo) is designed with massive scalability in mind (60.000+  
users) while OGo is designed for depth in functionality (<1000 users).
Basically SOGo uses vcard/ical BLOBs as a datastorage while OGo uses  
a regular normalized relational database schema.

a2) Because OGo has much more functionality you loose a lot when  
going to SOGo (you also gain if what you loose isn't important for  
you :-). But besides that a transition should not be hard.
"Just" copy the vCards/iCals between the systems via WebDAV/GroupDAV.  
(SOGo is completely build on top of vcard/ical while OGo has  
ZideStore to represent its data in those formats).


> b) What features are in OGo but not on SOGo?

Oh, thats far too much to explain in detail. OGo has a huge number of  
features (possibly too many ;-).

In general, if you just want a very simple mailer, a very simple  
calendar and a very simple addressbook, SOGo shines. In fact thats  
what a lot of people want :-) It has no data model mismatches with  
native clients, it very fast and (already) has a modern interface.
If you want a structured database, a lot of smart functionality and  
plenty of well thought out and proven features, OGo is and will stay  
much better.

Its really hard to explain (at least for me). If people think about  
the term "Groupware" they usually associate that with the  
functionality provided by Microsoft Exchange. Thats more or less  
exactly what is provided by SOGo (and competing products like Scalix  
or Zimbra).
OGo is more like an Intranet knowledge management system or a CRM  
with a lot of groupware features which were driven by real world  
requirements in the SME segment.


> c) How stable is SOGo? According to the web site a lot of work is  
> going on.

Unlike OGo SOGo is not a shrinked wrapped application. I wouldn't  
call SOGo unstable, by design its due to its simplicity inherently  
more stable than OGo.
But its still "immature" compared to OGo. Remember that the latter is  
in active maintenace for almost 12 years now while SOGo was just  
started in summer 2004.

There is no SOGo packaging yet, SOGo is used by just a few (though  
high scale!) companies. But this will change :-) SOGo is awesome  
software and it got even better by the work of Inverse.

Choice is hard, isn't it? ;-)

Greets,
   Helge
-- 
Helge Hess
http://www.helgehess.eu/