KDE3.4 Kontact 1.1 Outlook Replacment?

[Michael Mikowski]

Our work group of 6-7 is migrating to Linux desktops. 
This makes sense as we want to use our PC's for
individual development workstations as our production
servers are Linux and Cygwin just doesn't cut it.  The
company runs Exchange 2000, and there is no hope of
changing that in the near future.  The may be pushing
out Exchange 2003 this year.

I've tried stock Evolution 2.0.3 as delivered by
Mandrake, and it has disappointed.  It seems to be
getting more Gnome dependant, is very unstable on the
KDE desktop (crashing/hanging 3-6 times daily), and
recently cannot seem to connect to my calendar.  I
tried to compile a more recent copy, and the
dependencies were a nightmere.  Add to that,
Evolution's look and feel are awful.

So I gave Kontact as delivered by Mandrake 10.1 a try.
 Wow!  The dimap was *vastly* superior to Evolution. 
Evolution would hang with some inane message at the
bottom of the screen when, say, changing directories,
and continue to show the previouss message folder
until (if) it completed the operation.

Kmail on the other hand, gave instant feedback and
very snappy performance.  It is so important to see
that the program is working.  Kudos to the Kontact
team and Kmail in particular!

So, now I want to use Kontact as delivered in KDE3.4
as a full Outlook client.  How probable is this?  What
would we have to sacrifice?  Any suggestions would be
welcome.

Sincerely,

Mike