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I am looking for practical business functions to use to "preach" KDE/Kubuntu/Linux to my friends. And the PIM/addressbook in KDE is VERY close to be perfect! Just a few things missing

One thing that I really miss, and it is actually one of two things that make me keep Outlook (yeah, I know - not ideal...), is sync with Plaxo.

This online service is wonderful for business users with a lot of contacts. I have 1500+ contacts, and to keep all these updated is a pain. The more of my contacts that use Plaxo and update their own info, the happier I am.

Today, people change e-mail addresses, mobile phone numbers and IM addresses very frequently and the info you had 6 months ago might not even let you find the person any more today!

I know some people do not like Plaxo because of their almost spam like behaviour in the beginning where they sent a message to all your contacts if you did not remember to uncheck a box. Luckily, they have changed quite a bit. Facebook and all their extra plug-ins have also been in this category (and to a certain degree, they still are), so Plaxo is not alone

Plaxo has become a solid service and a lot of my business friends are using it. We need to get this sync into Kontact on the same level as it is integrated with Outlook. I think there are several levels of integration, but hope Kontact will get the best one out there.

I get a lot of questions from friends if KDE will allow them to get rid of Outlook. My answer for now is "Almost... As long as you do not rely on anything connected to Outlook".

Even if you personally do not want to use Plaxo, it is a good feature for this market segment and would be a HUGE push forward for Linux in the business community. If you are able to see this as a value, please vote it up.

Support for an remote contact store mainly depends on availability of a stable API for using the service from a client program, the API having a suitable licence for being used in a Free Software product and Terms of Service allowing the use through something that is not a web browser.

Based on that writing an Akonadi resource should not be that difficult, or rather depend on the complexity of their API.

Cheers,
_

anda_skoa wrote:Support for an remote contact store mainly depends on availability of a stable API for using the service from a client program, the API having a suitable licence for being used in a Free Software product and Terms of Service allowing the use through something that is not a web browser.

Based on that writing an Akonadi resource should not be that difficult, or rather depend on the complexity of their API.

Cheers,
_

As I am not a programmer, I do not know how stable their API is, but you can find some info here:

http://www.plaxo.com/api

There is already a sync for Thunderbird, but it seems the sync for Outlook is a lot better. Maybe the Thunderbird version is done through what they call "Portable Contacts" and Outlook uses the more specific API? I have no idea. Just hoping for a REALLY good and deep sync possibility.

Should I change the tag to Akonadi?

Oceanwatcher wrote:As I am not a programmer, I do not know how stable their API is, but you can find some info here:

http://www.plaxo.com/api

Looks OK.

Oceanwatcher wrote:Should I change the tag to Akonadi?

Yes, makes sense.

Cheers,
_

anda_skoa wrote:

Oceanwatcher wrote:Should I change the tag to Akonadi?

Yes, makes sense.

Ok, done. Now I hope people will vote this up and that some of the devs will consider this important enough to do something about

Oceanwatcher wrote:Ok, done. Now I hope people will vote this up and that some of the devs will consider this important enough to do something about

At the moment this is mainly a question of a new developer being interested in working on this, similar to how the Google Data resource is managed.

The main developers are up to the neck in porting work, etc.

Cheers,
_

I have been in contact with Plaxo regarding their full API, and they say it is a free API and that they have a SyncML server and also RESTful sync APIs. They would like to check out the developers before they give access to the full sync APIs since it's complex and if you get it wrong it's easy to cause data corruption.

Is this enough information to know if it is possible to get it working with Akonadi?

It is definitely possible.

Maybe one of the new developers has time for this after finishing whatever they currently work on, or even better another new developer comes along and thinks this would be a great way to join the project.

We'll see.

Cheers,
_