Exchange Server Substitute

[Dnd4evr]

I have a couple of PC's at home on a network. If I try accessing my ISP's e-mail from these different PC's my mail becomes fragemented (some here, some there...). The company I work for has a MS Exchange Server and uses Outlook as clients. Regardless of which system I log into, I can access my mail without fragementation. I would like to do this on my home network (manually syncronizing Outlook files is a pain ). I have Win98SE, Outlook 2000 and a PC I can setup as a server. I just don't have much of a budget (free would be great ).

I have done some research and found a couple of possible solutions including Linux solutions (I haven't used Linux yet, but I am willing to learn if I have to ). Any suggestions/recommendations/comments would be appreciated. Here is what I have found so far.

DeskNow Lite (Ventia) - free, Windows/Linux
Easy2Sync for Outlook freeware (ITSTH) - free, Windows
EZOutlookSync (EPIM) - ($40) (pre-released beta was free), Windows
Open-Xchange (Netline) - free, Linux

Has anybody tried any of these? How are they to use? Are there other solutions I should look at?