Novell Inc. announced Tuesday open beta availability of the latest version of its groupware program, Novell GroupWise 7. The new edition of GroupWise comes with an integrated e-mail and instant messaging interface, enhanced Outlook XP and 2003 support, and a bundled copy of SLES 9 (SuSE Linux Enterprise Server) to run it on.
When will groupwise divert from the ‘tried and true’ format and move towards something like Hula – that Novell sponsors? While it doesn’t seem to be as far reaching as GroupWise, when will this similar approach gain traction against this set in stone, old way of doing things? The time for change is now, and with Hula hitting 1.0 sometime in Sept (so says campd), I think it’s time to start thinking about past next quarter.
When will groupwise divert from the ‘tried and true’ format and move towards something like Hula – that Novell sponsors? While it doesn’t seem to be as far reaching as GroupWise, when will this similar approach gain traction against this set in stone, old way of doing things? The time for change is now, and with Hula hitting 1.0 sometime in Sept (so says campd), I think it’s time to start thinking about past next quarter.
Groupwise includes more than just e-mail and a calendar, it has other features as well (notably, Document Management, Workflow and Instant Messaging) which Hula is not designed for.
Hula, BTW, is hardly revolutionary.
The big hangup that keeps my company, and probably other small companies from moving to GW is the eDirectory requirement.
Let’s face it, like it or not, many of us are in an Active Directory environment. Having to configure and run eDirectory in parallel (hanging off of AD) is a major chore and definitely not moving in the direction of simplicity.
If Novell would abstract out the directory server part of GW and allow plugin to AD – or – eDirectory, we’d have bought GW instead of Exchange 2003. I would have preferred it too.
Sigh…true that, even though most sources tell me that eDirectory (and Novell Directory Services) is much better than Active Diretory, AD comes with Windows. Simple as that, so companies use it and hire people trained on it.
Now my shop has been historically Novell since time immemorial, so we’re more likely to migrate.
–rood
.. for instance http://www.novell.com/products/groupwise/img/mailbox_view_big.jpg — they’re hilarious!
Groupwise is still beta, but there is already support for it in Kontact:
http://lists.kde.org/?l=kde-commits&m=111986514131141&w=2
“When will groupwise divert from the ‘tried and true’ format and move towards something like Hula”
There are so many ways to respond to an obviously uninformed opinion. Hula is developed as a web application. STRICTLY a web application for that matter. Meaning, no offline use. What good would this do for people who use an single application for mail, calendaring and document management.
Not to get on my knees and fellate Novell, but this version of Groupwise is the only realistic contender to Exchange and Active Directory. Most notably because every other version of Groupwise “just works”. This is a major improvement on 6.5 and therefore is “tried and true” as it was put. But why wouldn’t you want that? Are you actually saying that it’s better to go with “new and unknown” than to improve upon an already good thig?
Ah… The Ximian PR machine at its best… Nice concept, I agree, but still not worth the hype.
Hula is developed as a web application. STRICTLY a web application for that matter. Meaning, no offline use.
Huh? Hula is comprised of a directory abstraction layer (using LDAP, E-Directory, Active Directory, or the file system as the backend store) and an architecture for deploying and managing modular servers, either on the same machine as the directory abstraction layer or distributed across a network, which in turn provide services such as POP3, IMAP, SMTP, HTTP, CalDAV, etc…
The group working on Hula have decided to put most of their current efforts into developing their web based mail and calendaring client, running on Hula’s http server, but they can do that because Hula already currently provides standard pop3 and imap for offline use with normal mail clients. Also, the CalDAV server which is being developed isn’t inherently limited to just connected use only, as it can be accessed from any client which speaks CalDAV not just the Hula web client.
.. for instance http://www.novell.com/products/groupwise/img/mailbox_view_big.jpg — they’re hilarious!
AH HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! ROFLMAO!!!!!! Oh wait….what’s supposed to be funny now that I look at it?
Ah… The Ximian PR machine at its best… Nice concept, I agree, but still not worth the hype.
Hula wasn’t a project of Ximian, Novell started the project long after aquiring Ximian.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hula_(software)
The same way that I wish Microsoft Exchange would attach to other directories such as eDirectory or Sun Directory Server and not require Active Directory
Does anyone know of a separate download link for only the client?
Hula is build on Novell’s Netmail ( test project http://www.myrealbox.com ). It was a “low” cost MTA & Webaccess etc. to counter Exchange a few years ago. With AD plugins.
The Netmail team and the GroupWise team have always worked together. But since Novell shifted to the linux side, they donated the code to Hula.
Oh wait….what’s supposed to be funny now that I look at it?
Have you looked closely at each mail’s subject line, and who they’re from?
see above^
You can check out more groupwise 7 information over at
http://www.abend.org/article.php/20050627221258664
As far as Dimble’s client version/server version access, older clients are able to connect to newer server versions, but not vise versa.