I was under the impression that Mac Mail integrated nicely with Exchange (including Contacts & calendards, etc)?
Has this been tested?
It does but it uses active sync only just like mobile devices so some of the features like sharing, public folders etc will be limited. It needs additional connections for that. Heck I think on Macs the GAL isn't even supported.
It's been a few years since I've touched a Mac on Exchange, but ours worked well with it, and Calendar sharing as well. (We didn't use public folders or anything).
Haven't gotten there yet. Have about 4 irons in the fire and really have to finish two before I move forward with the domain cutover. I can't do anything until July 5 anyway.
At the very core of it is a Linux kernel of some flavor, but that just used to load their own vmkernel.
No Linux at all. Never was. Long ago there was Linux in the host VM (Dom0 equivalent) but never in the ESX product itself. That was just a VM on top of ESX that provided a GUI. But that was removed long ago and now there isn't even that.