It may be MS' fault for having a nasty trainwreck of a protocol, but there's openchange now and MS has even published documentation on the exchange protocol, so it ought to be possible to talk to it.
Exchange may suck and getting rid of it may be the best solution, but it's what a lot of companies use for a shared calendar and there a ton of people who are stuck using outlook or owa who'd otherwise be free of all MS products.