I have a small business and I am trying to share the contact database. I have a courier IMAP server running for email, and anticipate using Evolution (although Kontact is fine too). All clients and servers are debian.

I would like to be able to create a shared database of our customer contacts (about 2000 new customer annually). Ideally, I would like to be able to link contact data with their emails, both in and outbound.

From everything that I have read it appears that OpenLDAP is the way to do this, but in researching LDAP it seems more like an authentication mechanism. Authentication is not an issue, since this is my own home based family business with only a few users - so it really isn't worth a fancy authentication setup as I can easily add users to each machine (a present only 4 pc's).

Our database, is just starting to get too complicated to manage individually. Is there a simple option for what I'm after, or do I need to go the LDAP route? Also, is Evolution and/or Kontact the way to go? I don't personally like Thunderbird anymore (I don't know why but the firefox/thunderbird packages, just don't seem to be performing well lately).

Thanks in advance for your help.

Maybe you're on the brink of a groupware or CRM solution? Citadel(.org) popped up in at least one persons search for a groupware/CRM solution, else I'm sure Freshmeat or Sourceforge could cater for it.

You're probably right. I've decided to bite the bullet and implement an LDAP server, it's a little frustrating, but I can see already that it will be useful.

I'm just fighting with keeping the schema the way that I want it!

There's a pretty useful mozilla schema floating around that has all the basic address book stuff in it that should work for you (a quick google should find it).

Also have a look at phpldapadmin as a front end.

Bill