centralized contacts without Exchange

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Is it possible to share contacts company-wide on a fileserver (without
installing Exchange) with Office 2003/2007? The older computers here (Office
2000/XP) were setup up for centralized contact lists using features built-in
to Outlook Express. Office 2003 and on changed these protocols, and we are
getting more and more workstations all the time that are preinstalled with
2003. All these users have to send copies of new contacts (or contact
changes) amongst themselves, which seems to me like a substantial waste of
time, and subject to various data inconsistencies.

I've read elsewhere in this forum that .PST files can't be shared. We don't
need Exchange since our ISP delivers email directly to each employee, and I
can't see spending thousands on Exchange just so we can share contacts.

I have considered upgrading all older workstations to at least Office 2003,
but there's no reason to do so if I will have to abandon shared contacts
completely. I need to have a new contact sharing system in place, then I can
upgrade the older systems to 2003 or 2007.

I can't imagine why a feature like this isn't readily available, built-in
and easy to setup with Office 2003/2007. On the other hand, I'm assuming
that sharing contacts CAN be done in Office 2003/2007 without purchasing
Exchange or other third-party software (if this is not possible, maybe it's
more likely a profit issue).

Can someone give me some directions where to study up on how to accomplish
my goal? Thanks!
 
See http://www.slipstick.com/addins/groupcontacts.htm for various ways to do this. SharePoint might be a particularly attractive options, since that would give you a lot of other collaboration tools.

--
Sue Mosher, Outlook MVP
Author of Configuring Microsoft Outlook 2003

and Microsoft Outlook Programming - Jumpstart for
Administrators, Power Users, and Developers
 
Erik said:
Is it possible to share contacts company-wide on a fileserver (without
installing Exchange) with Office 2003/2007? The older computers here
(Office 2000/XP) were setup up for centralized contact lists using
features built-in to Outlook Express. Office 2003 and on changed
these protocols, and we are getting more and more workstations all
the time that are preinstalled with 2003. All these users have to
send copies of new contacts (or contact changes) amongst themselves,
which seems to me like a substantial waste of time, and subject to
various data inconsistencies.
Click to expand...

You need some kind of back-end if you want to share data, although Outlook
2007 makes it easier than prior versions.
I've read elsewhere in this forum that .PST files can't be shared.
We don't need Exchange since our ISP delivers email directly to each
employee, and I can't see spending thousands on Exchange just so we
can share contacts.
Click to expand...

Buying the Small Business version is much less expensive. There are also
alternatives, some of which are described here:
http://www.slipstick.com/outlook/share.htm . One I've seen mentioned is
http://www.publicshareware.com/public-share-outlook-description.html
I have considered upgrading all older workstations to at least Office
2003, but there's no reason to do so if I will have to abandon shared
contacts completely. I need to have a new contact sharing system in
place, then I can upgrade the older systems to 2003 or 2007.

I can't imagine why a feature like this isn't readily available,
built-in and easy to setup with Office 2003/2007.
Click to expand...

It's because of how Outlook uses PSTs that they can't be shared. There is
no ability to sync I/O with multiple writers.
On the other hand,
I'm assuming that sharing contacts CAN be done in Office 2003/2007
without purchasing Exchange or other third-party software (if this is
not possible, maybe it's more likely a profit issue).
Click to expand...

Perhaps this might help:
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook/HA100749311033.aspx
 
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