1A Partner Day 2016, time for change

On Friday 4 November 2016, 1A First Alternative organized the fifth 1A Partner Day. This took place at Kok Delftech Business Centre with the aim to strengthen ties with our business partners, and to inform them about the organizational and technical developments at 1A.

Program 2016 (Dutch)

This 1A Partner Day was characterised by our 15th anniversary. In the past 15 years we have grown from a start-up to a professional company. Now we have set our sights on a considerably larger market share in our target market, SME in The Netherlands.

Many changes after the 1A Partner Day

At present we are working on the next big technical change. We’re going to migrate our Linux platform from Slackware to Debian. This allows us to focus our attention more to the integration of other services and we have a larger selection of services to integrate. The start of the rollout to customers is scheduled for April 2017. As with the migration to Active Directory, our customers will notice little or nothing of this change.

The workshops had twice as much time as last time and were well received. In the final presentation the successor of Zarafa was announced: Kopano. It has the same basis as Zarafa and there is, in contrast to migrating to Exchange Online, no need for a migration.

Kopano offers several ways to connect: from a browser with WebApp, from the desktop with DeskApp and from mobile with ActiveSync. Also, Outlook 2013 and 2016 can be connected with ActiveSync. In Outlook, you only have access to your own items, such as email, contacts and calendar. In addition there is the Kopano Outlook Extension (KOE). This native Outlook plugin provides most of the extra functionality we have gotten used to with the ZarafaClient. The KOE can only be used with the new Debian version of the 1A-server.

Time for a party

After the presentation afternoon we were reunited with the partners of the 1A-partners. They spent the afternoon in our beautiful city of Delft. There was a glass of champagne to start the party. Joost the medieval poet added luster to the event with poems composed specifically for 1A. Then the buffet was opened. For the enthusiast there was a fine dessert afterwards. It was a great party!

The 1A Partner Day has been a great success with important feedback from the 1A-partners. We look forward to the next edition!