Hi! Just some quick awnsers...
Questions: 1) Our ISP hosts our site from the following platform: [OS]FreeBSD [webserver] Apache/1.3.28 (Unix) PHP/4.3.6 mod_ssl/2.8.15 OpenSSL/0.9.7c. I notice that the OTRS RPMs do not mention FreeBSD. Will any of them work installing into this environment?
I have no experience with FreeBSD, but I think you should use the source package and follow the installation instructions in it. I think everything in OTRS is PERL, so it should work with your ISP's software and OS. It's desirable that they could add mod_perl support, as it makes OTRS incredibly faster (at least 10 times faster!).
2) Does it matter that the site is hosted in one location, and our mailserver in another?
No, if you don't mind to have some extra bandwith use in your internet conection and in your ISP. OTRS will fetch mail from your Exchange Server to your ISP, in order to allow you to work with them. Depending on how many mails you need to deal with, it could be preferably to install a server on your office instead of in your ISP.
3) Are there are any other questions you think I should be asking? Please feel free to enlighten me. I'm trying to overcome some in-house prejudice against open source software here and can use all the ammunition I can find to make my case.
OTRS works very well, it's stable and reliable. But it needs some time to get used to it and to customize it to your needs (probably as any other Trouble Ticket application). It's free, requires low maintenance once it's been set up, it's customizable, and can do a lot of things related to Trouble Ticketing. And we're expecting a new version soon (2.0!) with a lot of new things ;-) Regards, --- Victor R. Rodriguez Departamento de Sistemas Valoraciones del Mediterraneo, S.A. ---