Currently trying to find any kind of Open Source collaboration Server - I can assure you that the software costs alone are within 5% on any of the decently known and supported alternatives such as Zimbra, Zafura, eGroupware, open-Xchange etc. Zafura is the closest in terms of quality, but based on my testing, I have noticed that with my 15-user test groups (all users using at least three devices to sync continuously) Zimbra is the closest to Exchange in terms of efficiency, and if you remove OS resource usage I have noticed that the Exchange daemon is the most efficient. I hadn't gone through any kind of upgrade testing to see how easy that is (which could alone still sway me away from my current direction of updating Exchange) but when compared to how much easier it is to tie Exchange into Active Directory and properly apply any domain-controlled policies to clients, Exchange wins hands-down in any system that isn't wholly unix from the ground-up.

In conclusion, you are misinformed if you think any kind of FOSS system can compete with Exchange. If you want any kind of collaboration utilities (Calendar or Contact sync and grouping, etc) then you discard the F part and usually the OS part too - and the supposed knights of FOSS are even more greedy than Moneyholesoft from Redmond. At least Redmond allowed us a 3-month trial with 60 users to test out compared to the others. VMWare let us try Zimbra with 30 users for 30 days before they wanted to charge us - nobody else would even let us trial their packages at all.

What is sad is that most of those WEP AP's were done (some likely recently) by supposedly knowledgeable people, such as WorstBuy's IdiotSquad.

As a consultant it's infuriating how often I will come across new clients (even many companies) whose WiFi networks were secured by those morons out of incompetence. I have even seen them install small business servers with direct-to-internet connections and not even a NAT firewall, because "You can't have a VPN server behind a firewall" which we all know is bullsh**.

Pipes wasn't an acquired product, it was built in-house at the now-defunct Yahoo! Brickhouse.

Are you seriously so stupid that you didn't notice it was an april fools post?

First read the text, and read all of the business commentary compared to the exact same commentary in any of Forbes' other thousands of posts.

After that, look at the damned post date.

You are seriously stupid that you're falling for this.

I believe you are amazingly shortsighted that you think postal systems are irrelevant. Can you think of any other completely effective way to physically deliver large quantities of physical items to households covering a large geographical area, without the expense of storefronts etc?

I quite disagree that postal systems are dieing - I believe that in this day of internet shopping postal systems are becoming far more widely utilized than ever.

Why would anyone balk at a chance to wear lab coats in a 'professional' office?

I don't see how that is any less anti-competitive than the other two who have Konquer(Linux) and Safari(Mac) as equally entrenched. Of those three, Unix and Windows are the only two which actually have the ability to run in a completely or nearly GUI-less environment.

There is nothing which prevents any person from installing a secondary mailbox similar to those used by us in more rural areas for newspapers.

I hate government sponsored monopolies as much as anyone else, but the USPS actually provides a rather critical service even in these days of easily accessible alternatives such as e-mail. Without the pressure of the USPS being able to provide affordable prices for shipping to more poorly covered or less easily accessed areas (such as Alaska and Hawaii) only the people in major metropolitan areas would receive reasonable parcel and letter services. As much as that may not affect you there are still many millions of other people who are equally as valuable and important to you who would be royally bunged if things happened the way you obviously wish.

Honestly, as a married man I don't understand why anyone would think that...

My first thought was of more efficient ball bearings. Such perfect ball bearings alone could reduce world-wide energy usage by a large percentage. Technology like this is the truly "green" tech that we need to proliferate in addition to the other forms we are currently working on.