Calendaring software is software that minimally provides users with an electronic version of a calendar. Additionally, the software may provide an appointment book, address book, and/or contact list. These tools are an extension of many of the features provided by time management software such as desk accessory packages and computer office automation systems. Calendaring is a standard feature of many PDAs, EDAs and smartphones and also of many office suites for personal computers.
Sun Java System Communications Suite is a collection of "Industrial-Strength" software services from Sun Microsystems. The supported platforms are: Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Solaris and Windows Server. Since Oracle acquired Sun in 2010, collection is now called Oracle Communications Unified Communications Suite.
The Sun Java System Communications Express provides an integrated web-based communication and collaboration client to the Sun Java System Communications Suite. It consists of three client modules: Calendar, Address Book, and Mail. The Calendar and Address Book client modules are deployed as a single application on any web container and are collectively referred to as Unified Web Client (UWC). Sun Java System Communications Express is included with both the Sun Java System Calendar Server and the Sun Java System Messaging Server.
Microsoft Outlook is a personal information manager from Microsoft, available as a part of the Microsoft Office suite. Although often used mainly as an email application, it also includes a calendar, task manager, contact manager, note taking, journal, and web browsing.
Mozilla Thunderbird is a free and open-source cross-platform email client, news client, RSS and chat client developed by the Mozilla Foundation. The project strategy was modeled after that of the Mozilla Firefox web browser. It is installed by default on Ubuntu desktop systems.
A useful feature of Calendar Server is the notification service. This service will send an e-mail or an SMS to the calendar owner. These messages are sent to the calendar owner if he/she has been invited to an appointment or as a reminder of an upcoming appointment. These reminders are directed to a person's cell phone by using their phone carrier's email address assigned to their phone.
The notification services are also useful for developers to implement their own software applications. Calendar reminders and change events are published to a Java Message Service using Sun Java System Message Queue.
The Java Message Service (JMS) API is a Java message-oriented middleware API for sending messages between two or more clients. It is an implementation to handle the producer–consumer problem. JMS is a part of the Java Platform, Enterprise Edition, and was defined by a specification developed at Sun Microsystems, but which has since been guided by the Java Community Process. It is a messaging standard that allows application components based on Java EE to create, send, receive, and read messages. It allows the communication between different components of a distributed application to be loosely coupled, reliable, and asynchronous.
Developers may use the WCAP interface to write their own applications which access calendars, tasks, and look up "free busy" information on users. This interface returns calendar data in a number of formats including XML and iCalendar. JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) format was added to support AJAX development in the latest patch of Calendar Server 6.3.
Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup language that defines a set of rules for encoding documents in a format that is both human-readable and machine-readable. The W3C's XML 1.0 Specification and several other related specifications—all of them free open standards—define XML.
The Internet Calendaring and Scheduling Core Object Specification (iCalendar) is a MIME type which allows users to store and exchange calendaring and scheduling information such as events, to-dos, journal entries, and free/busy information. Files formatted according to the specification usually have an extension of .ics. With supporting software, such as an email reader or calendar application, recipients of an iCalendar data file can respond to the sender easily or counter-propose another meeting date/time. The file format is specified in a proposed internet standard for calendar data exchange.
In computing, JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) is an open-standard file format that uses human-readable text to transmit data objects consisting of attribute–value pairs and array data types. It is a very common data format used for asynchronous browser–server communication, including as a replacement for XML in some AJAX-style systems.
History and use
Sun's Java System Calendar Server has a long history, drawing technology from Sun Internet Calendar Server (SICS) and Netscape Calendar Server (NCS). The software undergone several name changes; in addition to the above, it has also been marketed as iPlanet Calendar Server and Sun ONE Calendar Server. The code base has been carried on throughout these name changes with only feature/packaging enhancements and bug fixes.
The Sun Java System Directory Server was Sun Microsystems' LDAP directory server and DSML server written in C. The Java System Directory Server is a component of the Java Enterprise System. Earlier iterations of Sun Java System Directory Server were known as Sun ONE Directory Server, iPlanet Directory Server, and, before that, Netscape Directory Server.
Sun Java System Access Manager is Sun Microsystems' web access management product and a component of Sun Java Enterprise System. Sun Java System Access Manager provides single sign-on, federation and secure Web service functionality.
Calendar Express was the original web-based client interface for the Calendar Server. This HTML client allowed Calendar owners to create appointments, invite others to meetings, and to subscribe to other calendars. The Calendar Express web-client was dropped from support starting with Sun Java System Calendar Server 6.3. This client functionality has been replaced by Sun Java System Communications Express.
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SOGo is an open source collaborative software (groupware) server with a focus on simplicity and scalability.
Microsoft Exchange Server is a mail server and calendaring server developed by Microsoft. It runs exclusively on Windows Server operating systems.
Microsoft Entourage is a discontinued e-mail client and personal information manager that was developed by Microsoft for Mac OS 8.5 and later. Microsoft first released Entourage in October 2000 as part of the Microsoft Office 2001 office suite; Office 98, the previous version of Microsoft Office for the classic Mac OS included Outlook Express 5. The last version was Entourage: Mac 2008, part of Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac, released on January 15, 2008. Entourage was replaced by Outlook for Macintosh in Microsoft Office for Mac 2011, released on October 26, 2010.
Calendaring Extensions to WebDAV, or CalDAV, is an Internet standard allowing a client to access scheduling information on a remote server. It extends WebDAV specification and uses iCalendar format for the data. The access protocol is defined by RFC 4791. It allows multiple client access to the same information thus allowing cooperative planning and information sharing. Many server and client applications support the protocol. Extensions to CalDAV for automated scheduling are also standardized, as RFC 6638.
The following tables compare general and technical features of a number of notable email client programs.
Outlook on the web is a personal information manager web app from Microsoft. It is included in Office 365, Exchange Server, and Exchange Online. It includes a web-based email client, a calendar tool, a contact manager, and a task manager. It also includes add-in integration, Skype on the web, and alerts as well as unified themes that span across all the web apps. Outlook on the web is navigated using the App Launcher icon which brings down a list of web apps from which the user may choose. In 2015, Microsoft started upgrading Outlook.com and Outlook on the web to use the Office 365 infrastructure, which was almost complete in January 2017 after the next version of Outlook.com was released.
Kolab is a free and open source groupware suite. It consists of the Kolab server and a wide variety of Kolab clients, including KDE PIM-Suite Kontact, Roundcube web frontend, Mozilla Thunderbird and Mozilla Lightning with SyncKolab extension and Microsoft Outlook with proprietary Kolab-Connector PlugIns.
The Mozilla Application Suite is a discontinued cross-platform integrated Internet suite. Its development was initiated by Netscape Communications Corporation, before their acquisition by AOL. It was based on the source code of Netscape Communicator. The development was spearheaded by the Mozilla Organization from 1998 to 2003, and by the Mozilla Foundation from 2003 to 2006. It has been superseded by SeaMonkey Internet suite, a community-driven Internet suite that is based on the same source code and continued to be developed with newer Mozilla codebase.
Nokia PC Suite is a software package used to establish an interface between Nokia mobile devices and computers that run the Microsoft Windows operating system. Its first release was in 1997, originally called Nokia Data Suite. It was replaced by Nokia Suite and integrated into the Ovi service suite.
Web Calendar Access Protocol (WCAP) is a protocol for remote client-server calendar access and scheduling based on the XML, HTTP, iCalendar, and vCard Internet standards. WCAP was created for use with the product that eventually became Sun Java System Calendar Server, but is also used by the open source Buni Meldware project. WCAP uses simple HTTP GET commands for accessing iCalendar, Freebusy, TODO and vCard entries. WCAP responses are either the traditional text form or an XML form of iCalendar/etc. Several plugins exist including those for Mozilla Thunderbird, Novell Evolution and Microsoft Outlook. There is a competing protocol called CalDAV undergoing standardization.
O3Spaces is a document management system developed by O3Spaces B.V.. It is built by a team of software engineers based in the Netherlands using OpenOffice.org, StarOffice, and ODF-centric applications as enterprise office and collaboration solutions. The product is written in Java, and based on the Tomcat server with a PostgreSQL backend. O3Spaces works by providing users a single web-based team environment, with built-in search capabilities and an optional Desktop Assistant. Its search functionality is said to work across PDF, ODF, and Microsoft Office document formats. Currently Firefox, Internet Explorer and Safari are supported.
GMS (GMS) is a commercial mail and groupware server developed by Gordano Ltd. It runs on Windows, Linux, Solaris, and AIX. Originally called NTMail which was the first commercially available mail for the Windows platform, the products were rebranded to the Gordano Messaging Suite in August 2002 to reflect the support for additional hardware platforms and operating systems.
MailSite is a commercial mail server, calendar software, contact manager and collaborative software developed by Rockliffe Systems. MailSite was one of the first mail servers to run on Windows NT using Internet standards when version 1.2 was released in 1996. MailSite has been in continual development since 1996 with version 10 released in 2013. MailSite runs on a single Windows Server or a cluster of Windows Server computers. MailSite works natively with Microsoft Outlook versions 2007 to 2013 for mail, calendar and contacts without requiring any Outlook plug-ins. MailSite includes an Exchange ActiveSync (EAS) server for synchronizing mail, calendar and contacts with mobile devices. MailSite also works with Internet Standards-based mail clients such as Mozilla Thunderbird.
