After 2 years I have found the perfect solution. Mozilla Thunderbird 17 with Exquilla for Microsoft Exchange and Exchange EWS Provider 3.2.
I am able to access MS Exchange Emails, Addressbook, calendar and shared calendars in public folders.
Tested on Ubuntu 13.04
No need to switch on the VM anymore! :)
**UPDATE**Tested on Ubuntu 14.04**With 2 MS Exchange accounts.
There are two options avaialble to Ubuntu users for accessing MS EXchange email and calendar
- Mozilla Thunderbird + Exquilla Plugin - THe plugin is a shareware , free for first 3 months then $10 / year
- Evolution + Evolution-EWS/Evolution-Mapi - This is free and works perfectly with MS Exchange 2007 and 2010 . Syncs, mail, contacts, GAL, calendar and public calendars. The best part is that Evolution not slow anymore, nor does it crash so often.