The mssing link - Windows free office?

Suppose I wanted to run an office with no Windows software at all. Would that be possible? A single user sure, but what about an office?

First of all I'd start with Linux or Lindows as my OS. Good for a single PC but how about my office network. Novell?

As an office, I'd need a word processor, spreadsheet and perhaps even a database. Star Office, Lotus and OpenOffice are good alternatives to Windows software, I suppose.

A browser wouldn't be a problem either: Netscape (yikes!) and Opera.

I'd also want an email server (like MS Exchange) with most or many of Exchange's features (global address book, global calendar, etc.). I'm not aware of any non-MS alternatives here...

My intention is not to get a list of every possible non-Windows software out there; the question is simply if it is possible or not? In other words, is every software available or is there really a missing link?

Well, Novell makes a very good network product. Authenticating a linux login against Novell isn't as easy as windows, but I think there's a client available and you can use PAM to authenticate against and LDAP server using your tree.

Novell also makes Groupwise, which in my opinion kicks Exchange/Outlook's ***. There is no native linux client, but Groupwise 6 is supposed to have a really good webclient, and Groupwise 5 has a webclient that's useable, just nowhere near as good as the Windows client.

So ya, I think it's very possible to go Windows free, provided you can afford the (re)training.