About Kolab Clients

The KDE Kolab Client is based on other KDE software like Kontact, KMail, KOrganizer and KAddressbook. All development of the Kolab community is done within the KDE software repository and contributed directly to KDE. It runs whereever KDE runs. KDE 3.5 is suited for POSIX and GNU like systems, e.g. GNU/Linux. KDE 4 will also run in Mac OS X and Windows, checkout the roadmap.

Sooner or later all Kolab feature come with the regular releases of KDE, more precisely from the KDEPIM team. In addition there are special branches of KDEPIM that cater specifically to enterprise users. The Kolab community helps to maintain theses branches.

For use in production grade systems, we recommend the "Enterprise 35" (e35) branch of KDEPIM, which can be build on to of KDE 3.5 . (Branch "proko2" is for old KDE 3.2, 3,3 and 3.4 versions.) Check out the KDE Client Download section and the roadmap for the upcoming enterprise4 branch.

The Toltec Connector 2 is the reference Outlook connector used during development of the Kolab project so interoperability with the KDE Kolab client was tested intensively. Its vendor Radley Network Technologies has a stable Outlook connector (Toltec 1 for Kolab 1) on the market since October 2003.

User and groups can share folders including those that contain emails, calendar items, tasks and contacts with the Toltec Connector. Toltec Connector supports Kolab 2 shared public folders and users report success syncing with mobile devices like Palms Pilots and Windows CE devices using ActiveSync.

The Kolab2 XML Storage Format has been designed and developed in cooperation with the Toltec developers.

The KONSEC Konnektor is a Microsoft MAPI Storage Provider supporting the Kolab 2 XML Storage format and the Kolab 2 server. It was designed to be interoperable with all Kolab 2 clients and special attention was given to support Microsoft ActiveSync (Pocket PC PDAs) and Palm Pilots. The KONSEC Konnektor fully supports Kolab 2 shared public folders including folders containing calendars, tasks and contacts. In case features are required which cannot be properly expressed using the current Kolab XML format a fallback to TNEF is configurable.

The most recent major release added support for Outlook 2007, Microsoft Vista and large mailboxes (more than 2 GB). Synchronisation is now very fast and efficient.

The Bynari Insight Connector 4.0 for Microsoft Outlook supports the Kolab 2 XML Storage format and the Kolab 2 server. The latest release features several performance enhancements, sieve rules/vacation notification, mobility support for cradle sync, enhanced offline support and more.

Currently part of Horde CVS, this is still under development. It will allow users to access their server mailboxes and have full groupware functionality available. If you would like to contribute join the kolab-devel mailing list. All contributions welcome.

Horde currently still requires a SQL database and work is in progress which removes this requirement. Instructions on how to obtain and install the webclient can be found here.

SyncKolab was written to add Kolab functionality to Thunderbird. It utilizes selected IMAP folders to synchronize them with the local address book, calendar and tasks. It has been tested under Thunderbird for Windows, Linux and MacOSX.
SyncKolab works nicely with Thunderbird 2 and Lightning 0.9.