Outlook 2011 for Mac and Kerio Connect
For any Entourage user, the reality of finally getting a Mac version of Outlook is almost surreal. And we applaud Microsoft’s Mac Business Unit for finally tackling the job. But as with any completely new Application, the first one can be buggy and missing features. Outlook 2011 is no exception. While there are many articles being written about what Outlook 2011 for Mac can and can’t do, I want to focus on something else.
For us, and almost 90% of our client base, we use Kerio Connect to manage our email, our calendars, and our cluttered address books. Most of us rely on our Kerio Connect server to simply work with whatever client application we decide to use.
Our reality is that Outlook 2011 for Mac only supports Exchange 2007 and 2010 servers (out of the box) to connect to an enterprise account (mail, calendar, contacts) as it relies on a fairly new technology named “EWS” or Exchange Web Services. The good news is that Kerio is already working to add this technology to their Kerio Connect server. The bad news is that we will all need to wait a month or two for this updated version to be ready. Kerio Connect 7.2 will support Outlook 2011, but to what extent, we’re not sure. It’s obvious that Kerio is committed to supporting as many features as it can that are present in the final product.
What is our advice?
Feel free to buy your Office 2011 upgrade when it releases later this month. We strongly recommend that you purchase a “Volume (Open) License”, directly from Microsoft, CDW or SHI, as this makes it so much easier for us to manage your software deployments.
But whatever you do, DO NOT use Outlook 2011 until we have had the opportunity to test it with Kerio Connect 7.2 first, and then upgrade your Kerio Connect to 7.2, for your company. If you are a RocketFast hosted account, we will be upgrading the RocketFast servers just as soon as we feel that 7.2 is stable and ready for prime time.
