We currently have a few company email accounts, POP mailboxes with
Outlook 2000 in MS Office 2000 as the client.  Soon we will retire
Office 2000 for 40 users, and about 10 users will use Office XP, and
30 users will move to StarOffice6.0 (StarOffice running on Win 2000
Pro).
So that we can have companywide email, we will be deploying MS
Exchange Server 2000, so that we can use some of the advanced features
of Office XP.
Three questions:
1) Exchange Server 2000 can support non-Outlook email clients via
SMTP. Correct?
2) StarOffice6.0 does not have an email client included.  Correct?
3) What lower-cost/no-cost email clients could we give to the
StarOffice users, that would minimize the confusion of previous users
of Outlook 2000? (we would not consider Outlook Express at all)

Greetings colemgarcia-ga,

Thank you for your question! I have your answers right here : 


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1) Exchange Server 2000 can support non-Outlook email clients via
SMTP. Correct?

Correct. I've used this setup before successfully, many times. As long
as you configure your POP and SMTP settings to the correct server, you
can use any email client.


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2) StarOffice6.0 does not have an email client included.  Correct? 

Correct. If you look at the documentation at
http://wwws.sun.com/software/star/staroffice/6.0/compare/MSXPvsSO6.pdf
that compares it against Office XP, you'll see on the table at page 3,
that "email client" goes unchecked for StarOffice.


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3) What lower-cost/no-cost email clients could we give to the
StarOffice users, that would minimize the confusion of previous users
of Outlook 2000? (we would not consider Outlook Express at all)

My personal favorite, that I have been using since 1995, and taking it
through various upgrades, is Eudora. The full program is offered as a
free download, and the only catch is that it is ad-sponsored. However,
in actual practice, this has not been a problem at all, as the ads are
tucked away in a corner, and are tasteful. As an email client, Eudora
is packed with features and is highly configurable. Not only that, it
is extremely stable, and not susceptible to the common security holes
of Outlook. Have a go at it at : http://www.eudora.com/ .


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Hope that answers your questions. If anything is unclear or needs
further research or clarification, please do not hesitate to post a
Request For Clarification. In addition, if would like to review other
email clients other than Eudora (although I hardly see the need),
please let me know too. I wish you all the best in your
re-organization!


Sincerely,

kyrie26-ga