Using Linux on corporate workstation - e-mail and online chat

This is the second blog post about using Linux operating system on a desktop, inside the MS Windows dominated company. This story is about two communication mediums: online chat (MS Lync/Skype for business) and mail (MS Outlook substitute).

There is a very high probability, that your company is running MS Exchange e-mail server, which you can access by MS Outlook client. 

Obviously you cannot run Outlook directly in Linux environment without using tools like wine. 

First thing to try is MS Outlook web application - MS Outlook Web Access.
If it is on - it should be available on https://your.exchange.server.com/owa

If you insist on using thick client, you will notice, that for example Mozilla Thunderbird cannot authenticate to MS Exchange using your domain user and password.

But there is another great tool we can use - davmail

Davmail acts like some kind of reverse proxy - it can talk to Exchange (through OWA), and your email client like Thunderbird can use standard POP3/SMTP protocols to speak with davmail.

There's an excellent guide how to setup Thunderbird on davmail site, so I will not cover it here.

Another popular medium is corporate chat which can be delivered by MS Lync/Skype for business client. 

This is much simpler than email.

You have to install pidgin application and pidgin-sipe plugin, set up the Lync/Skype for business server address in configuration, login using domain credentials, and there you go.