Blog Entry

Submitted by Flyingguy (not verified) on 12 November 2007 - 12:17pm.

grrrrrrrrr...

This blasted blog software kills anything with symbols in it. I had outlined a rather simple example of an XML ( which I detest ) way to represent objects for edit.

But it really is just that simple, it really is. A few rules about layout and whatnot and you are golden, hell even use the gecko rendering engine if you want *really* pretty.

Submitted by Alan Pearson (not verified) on 15 November 2007 - 10:56am.

Dean

On the Tasks thing, it seems half baked.
We would like to assign people tasks, the assigner see the progress, see updates to the tasks, see the percentage complete, be able to change the task (due date/ description etc) and decent API to be able to do this.

We've got some MS Project VBA code trying to drive GW Tasks and these features are sorely needed !!

Submitted by Alan Pearson (not verified) on 15 November 2007 - 10:58am.

Why can we not have this ????

It is CRAZY that this doesn't exist.
Also, why not integrate messenger into GW Client instead of standalone ????

Finally, tighter integration with GW, i.e. able to use GW dist lists for broadcasts etc.

Submitted by Alan Pearson (not verified) on 15 November 2007 - 11:06am.

Dean

Please, please don't create Yet another admin solution....

Plug into iManager or use C1.

The whole Novell story is integration, and I don't want lots of different admin tools.
I use C1, because it is Xwindows based and I can run it from anywhere.

We don't all use Windows workstations, and we're pushing more and more to SLED. I need to able to admin GW from anywhere and iManager is the preferred solution for this.
Not another admin tool, please, please please NO !

Submitted by Alan Pearson (not verified) on 15 November 2007 - 11:08am.

Dean

Can we get a preview of what is in this release ?

And I agree with the Bonsai version number comments by other posters, it doesn't deserve GW8, but 7.5 or something.
Maybe the docs don't show all the changes or small things that make a big difference, sooner you get a beta out sooner we can really tell !

:-)

Submitted by Alan Pearson (not verified) on 15 November 2007 - 11:09am.

Oh Yeah, and please for the love of EVERYTHING keep GW tightly integrated with Edirectory.... don't even think about making it 'standalone' as was proposed previously.

We want all Novell stuff to Integrate (read T+C non-integration with other Novell stuff) not stand alone.

Thanks !

Submitted by Dean Lythgoe (not verified) on 16 November 2007 - 8:28am.

Somehow I missed this comment - sorry for the late reply....

You are actually purchasing a mailbox. The client that you use to access that mailbox will continue to receive updates and features. The Linux Client is new! The features are catching up - as you mention - many of them have existed in previous releases in other clients. There are many features in the Linux Client that are new to GroupWise and never existed in any client before Bonsai - Auto-Save, Web Panels, Alternate Time Zones - to name just a few.

Hope that helps and I hope that the Bonsai Linux Client is all you need it to be!

Submitted by Dean Lythgoe (not verified) on 16 November 2007 - 8:39am.

One thing to understand is that expanding our directory integration story does not mean that eDirectory will not continue to be integrated. They are not mutually exclusive. You can support other directories AND still integrate with eDir. That is our strategy.

Dean

Submitted by Dean Lythgoe (not verified) on 16 November 2007 - 8:46am.

Here is our dilemma... ConsoleOne is at the end of its life. No new development and new platforms will not be supported in the future. This is not a good strategy for GroupWise to continue.

iManager - about 50% of the people I talk to say: "Please plug into iManager - it is the greatest thing in the world." The other 50% say: "If you ever plug into iManager - you are the biggest idiots in the history of the world"

What to do? - I appreciate everyone's input and it is valuable, but you all must realize that, in the end, we want to provide an Administration tool that 'most" of you will be happy with. That pushes us to consider other options besides iManager.

Stay tuned...

Submitted by Dean Lythgoe (not verified) on 16 November 2007 - 8:57am.

I don't know how to provide a preview other than BETA or the documentation. Maybe you have some suggestions. We have demo'd our progress at many events throughout the year - GWAVACon, GroupWise Advisor and BrainShare.

Authorized BETA is getting close! We did a build last week and have not taken a fix yet that has required a rebuild. Testing is running through their test plan - they say they need until next Wednesday - November 21st. This is the day before Thanksgiving- so we probably will wait until Monday the 26th to post the Authorized BETA. However, this is day to day and we evaluate our validation progress to make sure we are meeting our exit criteria for Authorized BETA.

Hope that provides some context...

Submitted by Dean Lythgoe (not verified) on 17 November 2007 - 10:12am.

As always the big problem we have is not updating eDir but getting information from eDir into GroupWise and then keeping it synced up. You mention third party products being "contained" in NDS. I assume you mean the data these products would use, but one big problem again is knowing what data we need to look for and sync over into GroupWise and then keeping it updated.

The bottom line - these are not difficult problems to solve. GroupWise has simply been paralyzed with Novell's own Administration strategy. NWAdmin was a great solution, but people demanded a single point of administration on many platforms and for all of their products - along comes ConsoleOne and the Java wave. This presented an opportunity to do just want FlyingGuy and others have been advocating - integration with all of Novell's products. This worked for many users, but some did not like the change from NWAdmin. iManager promised to solve another customer demand of being able to administer from anywhere and not be tied to an installed piece of software. GroupWise did not immediately jump to this strategy for several reasons and now the strategy also has a few holes.

As you have all noticed on this blog alone, there are lots of very passionate people that disagree about what we should do and that doing one thing will satisfy some of our users, while doing another will satisfy another set. We can't even agree on a simple topic like whether it should be called 7.5 or 8.0. :)

Once again - thank you for your input and the ability for me to interact directly with so many people! Constructive, valuable suggestions and comments really do have an impact on what engineering does and what Product Management envisions.

Submitted by Alan Pearson (not verified) on 17 November 2007 - 5:48pm.

Dean
I know you can't please everyone all the time.

But Imanager IS the Novell admin story. OES 2 now finally allows to admin everything with Imanager (but one KEY thing is I can ALSO do most things via cmd line, which is REALLY important for scripting etc, and when the web browser don't cut it).

I'd prefer to have an Imanager plugin for GW, than some other new tool.
Imanager is used to admin Edirectory, why not GW too ?

On the Edirectory integration comment, I think you weaken Novell by trying to integrate with other directory solutions. Yeah sure, integrate with them for authentication, but the true beauty of GW is that it is so tightly integrated with edirectory (ok, let's not go there with GWs separate databases).

Here's something else to consider :
When we went shopping for an email solution, we choose GW on it's merits, which are many.
We'd never considered Novell for ANYTHING before, and installing the GW eval was difficult. I cursed up and down about the eDirectory dependancy and trying to get it working.

But months later, after being forcibly introduced to eDirectory, OES and all it's great services, we're moving the entire company to Novell (OES, GW, Zenworks + hopefully T+C when it integrates tightly)
We've got iPrint, Novell Client, NSS, all Linux boxes auth'ing to eDirectory etc.

We're a Linux shop and Novell are the only company who seem to bring everything that is needed to Linux....all those services, dependable advanced and integrated.

This would NOT have happened had it not been for GW forcing us to use Edirectory, we'd simply have shoved it on our Apple OD servers, and never have moved.

Your biggest competitor MS... does Exchange integrate with other directories ? Does it hell. It REQUIRES active directory.
Same for Share Point.

On all other things, yes GW should be very interoperatible (where is CalDAV BTW?) but eDirectory is the crown jewels... and brings Money to Novell. Why would I buy GW and try to get it to play with something else ?

You've obviously got other ideas about GW admin, which, scares the hell out of me !

Just my 2 pences worth.

Submitted by Alan Pearson (not verified) on 17 November 2007 - 5:53pm.

Sorry Dean by preview I meant what fixes / features etc.

I'm praying the MTA Sync in Linux is now finally fixed and doesn't wipe out admin defined fields :-)

Submitted by Alan Pearson (not verified) on 17 November 2007 - 5:54pm.

By the way Dean, thanks for posting to the BLOG and replying to comments, it's real good feedback for customers and assures us that Novell are alive, well, listening and doing cool stuff !

Submitted by Flyingguy (not verified) on 18 November 2007 - 12:27am.

Dean,

I would submit that said paralysis has earned Novell quite a bit of ill will from the community as a whole as well as from the critics. It also has given the anti-GW/Anti-Novell and Pro-Microsoft contingent ammunition for their various attacks.

Someone needs to make the call, make the hard decision and it has to happen NOW not 2 years from now when our company has lost even more market share. Just saying, we have a Linux kernel is not going to make a bit of difference in the trenches.

iManager is barely passable, NWAdmin IS old but it still works very well for what it does, it does it quickly and efficiently, ConsoleOne is a lost cause.

If I were at Novell the I would advocate for the following:

Design a very tiny program: One that makes no registry entries, does not require any sort of install program, does not require any DLL's that are not part of windows 98SE or better or any.lib support that is not part and parcel of any common Linux or OS-X distribution. This is not hard to do, its really just a smart parser.

All communication is across TCP/IP. All the definition files that represent the data elements to be edited or maintained are server based and are called as needed instead of being loaded en-mass as it currently is in NWAdmin and ConsoleOne. If they are XML you can compress them by at least 80% using any of the common ZIP formats and libs that are available.

This would solve pretty much everyones argument of Cross-Platform and Remote administration.

Submitted by Dean Lythgoe (not verified) on 20 November 2007 - 5:19pm.

This was in our design and the work was started, but because of other priorities and features, this was dropped. Our plan is to leverage CASA for our SSO solution. Obviously, the effort with Teaming + Conferencing pushed us to make some trade offs. This is not difficult work and it is still in our plans.

Submitted by Dean Lythgoe (not verified) on 20 November 2007 - 5:22pm.

Our goal with Tasks was all geared toward 'Personal Task Management', not Project Task Management. We wanted to make sure that we designed and implemented this first and then we will extend this to 'Shared' models that are already present in the GroupWise infrastructure. Personal productivity was our focus, we will shift this focus to team/shared/corporate type models like we have with Calendars and Address Books. We also have plans to do this with distribution lists, roles and administration.

Hope that provides some insight into our thinking...