Background : We're currently in the middle of a big system update here. We're moving from an existing IMAP based email system to MS exchange, including migrating something like 40,000 user's data and various other stuff.
Problem : Exchange's IMAP support sucks balls. Some (but not many) of our users don't use Outlook - it's the standard client but we allow people the choice; most don't feel the need to change - and thus we have a problem, in so far as any decent client is likely to break the Exchange IMAP service from time to time.
Solution : We custom designed a proxy server to sit between the user and Exchange, trapping the various IMAP commands Exchange doesn't support properly and either dealing with them or politely failing them back to the client. This was Some Significant Work. The consequence for users is they have to request IMAP access be enabled once they have been moved to the Exchange system (which basically means them being switched to use the proxy), since the proxy could not support everyone using it at the same time. This is very simple task, which requires them to input a few pieces of information into a web page and click 'OK'. Bear in mind all this work was, in the end, to make life easier for the few hundred (out of 40,000) users who don't like Outlook. The alternative was to say "sorry, we're standardising on Outlook. Get used to it" but we didn't think that was polite and we like to give our users a choice if we can. The proxy request web page is a standard form for our business, and has a 'comments' section at the bottom.
The following comment came in along with a request this afternoon.
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| Quote: Enable IMAP for my email accounts. (I assume that it will be properly secured too. After all, we wouldn't want logins to email going over the network unencrypted!) But why do I have to ask you to do this at all? Shouldn't you enable it for everyone by default? Like that you'll be able to migrate everyone trivially just by a few minor reconfigurations (redirect email to be delivered to a new host, adjust the client to contact that host, job done) instead of raising a support ticket! That's just *TERRIBLE* and gives the impression of you being very unprofessional! Didn't you think to properly check whether people were using email clients other than the ones in office as part of the migration plan? At the very least, I'd have expected you to have examined the profile of clients currently being used as collected from the logs of the existing email servers; after all, that information is already being collected (yes?) and it's actual evidence of what people are really doing. | |
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And he never even said 'please'...
