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GroupWise 8 enters Public BETA
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Original post date: 3 September 08
Introducing GroupWise 8!!
Public beta of Bonsai is here! Also the code name is gone – the next version of GroupWise is officially GroupWise 8! Please download it at: www.novell.com/beta
Along with our authorized beta sites, our internal Novell IS&T team and several customers and partners, we are pleased to bring you a very solid, well tested and superbly engineered update to the Novell Collaboration family. As preparation for public beta, GroupWise has gone through an extensive round of testing, validation and automated review. Here are a few highlights:
Automation: The Quality Control team has continued an effort to automate several of our test cases and testing processes. The automated tests are run every day as soon as a new build of the code with the latest changes is complete. The automated test cases continue to expand in number and coverage. They are our first indication that we have a solid build on a daily basis. The automation test cases have not failed once in the last 45 days.
Test Cases: The testing organization has written and executed over 9000 test cases, many of them multiple times in order to catch regressions and ensure quality. The P1 test cases represent about 8300 of the overall test case database and were recently executed again as part of our public beta preparedness. Those test cases passed at 93%. Engineering has already fixed several of the issues that were uncovered by those test cases and we will target the rest of them to be resolved before FCS.
Authorized BETA sites: We have had excellent participation from the 50+ authorized beta sites. They recommended and approved that we move on to public beta. Several of the beta sites have already deployed GroupWise 8 into their production systems and environments. Their participation, input and testing has been invaluable and they have helped shape the product as well as find issues and validate scenarios.
Internal Rollout: Our own IS&T department has been very aggressive in making sure that GroupWise 8 is rolled out and being used by Novell as a corporation. We have almost every Post Office inside of Novell running GroupWise 8 on Linux and NetWare. (Over 20 in all) Those post offices are located in Provo, Waltham, Europe and Asia. We also have MTAs, two of our main GWIAs and WebAccess all running GroupWise 8. Over 4000 employees are on a Bonsai post office while just over 400 are currently using a Bonsai client (Windows, Linux, Mac and WebAccess). We expect to expand this rapidly over the next few weeks.
Quality Metrics: As mentioned in a few of my blog posts, Novell is pushing every product line to increase their quality and to be able to measure it. One of those metrics is based on the severity of bugs/defects found and fixed in the product. Here are some of the metrics that represent the state of the GroupWise 8 public beta code, including the public beta goals.
- Critial bugs: 91% resolved - 90% is the goal for public beta
- Major bugs: 93% resolved - 85% is the goal for public beta
- Normal bugs: 75% resolved – 75% is the goal for public beta
- Minor bugs: 75% resolved – 50% is the goal for public beta
Lighthouse Project: Novell is also sponsoring an early adopter program. We have 12 customers that have agreed to rollout GroupWise 8 into production with the public beta code. This will provide real world experience and help us gauge our readiness for final shipment. In all, including Novell, its beta sites and the Lighthouse program, there should be almost 10,000 people using GroupWise 8, in production, by the time we ship the final version.
We are confident that you will find GroupWise 8 to be very solid, well-tested and with more new features than any previous release of GroupWise. I know that we will not satisfy everyone, but I am confident that there is something in this release of GroupWise that will make it a ‘must’ upgrade for you and your organization.
Check out the ‘What’s New’ section of the documentation to find your favorite feature.
During the final push before final shipment, we will continue to polish and make it shine. Please help us by participating in the public beta and by providing feedback.
Enjoy!!
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User Comments
G'day Dean, Great news,
Submitted by -Advansys- on 3 September 2008 - 7:57pm.
G'day Dean,
Great news, please pass on our congrats to the team!
Keep up the good work.
Greg
Advansys
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Nice to see it ship - but
Submitted by Anonymous-jh (not verified) on 4 September 2008 - 12:05am.
To little to late - since Bonsai was first talked about by Novell the world has moved on but the feature set of Bonsai has stayed the same. Things like Outlook 2007, and iPhone support have be be part of the product not missing or expensive add-ons via third party solutions.
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RE: Nice to see it ship - but
Submitted by dlythgoe on 4 September 2008 - 5:50pm.
I believe GroupWise 8 to be the right product for the right time. It has lots of great features and I believe that the more your users use it, the more they will fall in love with it. The reliable, secure, cross platform solutions will continue to appeal to a lot of people. No product is ever perfect - but you will find, as you explore some of the depth, that there is something in it for everyone!
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3rd party solutions are not expensive vs rip and replace
Submitted by Anonymous on 15 October 2008 - 4:58pm.
People... Lets be realistic. I keep hearing about how companies are going to rip out GroupWise because it doesn't do something Exchange does out of the box.
First lets assume that Exchange was as was as fast, secure and customizable as GroupWise... It isn't, but lets assume it is.
Exchange 2007 does some pretty cool stuff out of the box, but arguably not very well. Synchronization is not in the same league as BES or Notifylink. Archiving and eDiscovery or no where as good out of the box as GW Archive, or Sonian, and NOTHING compares to the CRM integration of Omni RiVA.
Now add up the cost of upgrading your Nows subscription license in order to upgrade to GW8 (ZERO$) and hardware to move from GroupWise 7 to GroupWise 8 (ZERO$ in most cases)
Now add up the cost of moving to Exchange 2007 Licensing, adding 64 bit hardware, SAN, Outlook 2007 client licenses, Active Directory, ETC. Am I drawing a good picture?
I've done the math and having the choice to choose best in class add ons makes sense... Avoiding vendor lock in and a complete infrastructure change makes sense... Spending a few bucks a month per user for iPhone support with 3rd party tools makes sens....
Just a thought for my friends who are battling these same arguments on a daily basis... mrp
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Modernize, PLEASE.
Submitted by Anonymous on 22 October 2008 - 8:24am.
Kerio, Zimbra, and Apple are tearing it up. Novell needs to step back and look at its products... should take the platform-agnostic and encompass-all approach. The success of Web 2.0 startups can be attributed to feature-rich and feature-parity products. Look at Kerio... they support out-of-the-box ActiveSync for Exchange for MS phones and push for iPhones. That means less stress and backlash from IT. Users demand these sort of features now and IT is usually unwilling to deploy 3rd party plugins.
What happened to CalDAV? Google Calendar and Apple now are picking up this international standard and Novell just dropped the ball when they dumped the Hula project. I was impressed when I first read about Hula ---actual open protocol, proper IMAP, CalDAV support --then it disappeared. Went back to proprietary stuff. Even the GW client applications are not equal. Because Novell uses Java, the cross-platform clients don't perform the same and are missing crucial features from the Windows client. Please take a page from Mozilla and build native applications the same way every platform has a native, well-performing version of Firefox and Thunderbird.
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Well said
Submitted by Anonymous on 22 October 2008 - 11:22am.
I agree
Novell are well behind the curve and are stuggling to catch up.
Even groupwise 8 uses C1 for admin, which is practically unsupported / undeveloped.
Meaning that to admin my Novell network (zenworks, OES, GW) I have to use 3 different tools (imanager, c1, zenworks web based)
But the real problem is the lack of basic features.
For example a user came to me today and asked how to remove attachments from a message received. Can the client do it ? No.
This is basic stuff.
Bonsai is a step in the right direction, but it should have been a lot more.
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At least support current platforms
Submitted by Anonymous on 22 October 2008 - 3:03pm.
Add lack of platform support to the list. C'mon, Windows Server 2008 has been available for 7 months now and apparently GW8, whenever it releases, still won't support the *client* running on it? Hello terminal services!
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Re: Support Current Platforms
Submitted by dlythgoe on 1 November 2008 - 8:28am.
We usually do not certify or support our clients running on a server platform. However, we do support our agents running on Windows 2008. GroupWise 8 will be the version of GroupWise that is supported on this new platform. It is the first major release of GroupWise since Windows 2008 shipped. That is pretty standard practice. Once a platform releases, the next major release of our products will support it - generally. We sometimes will take a support pack of a currently shipping product and make sure it is compatible.
Dean
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Early feedback on Bonsai Beta
Submitted by Simon Tideswell (not verified) on 4 September 2008 - 3:37am.
Hello Dean.
GroupWise 7 was a very painful experience for many customers (in the early days). A lot of us, myself included, gave Novell a really hard time over this (and rightly so). I've only just downloaded the beta and am still installing it as I'm typing so I don't know what it's like. But the explanation above of the lengths Novell has gone to in terms of pre-release testing and general product QA are really astonishing and very comforting. I really believe Novell are finally listening to their customers and I am very optimistic that Bonsai will be a "killer" release.
Simon.
Fingers crossed.
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What about testing on Windows?
Submitted by Anonymous on 4 September 2008 - 5:08am.
I have read many articals about GroupWise 8 and the extensive test on Netware and Linux. What about Windows? I know product is considered a bad word here but the fact is Novell customers run GroupWise on Windows. Yet, I see no information about it being thoroughly tested on that platform. We have held off any upgrade after our 7.01 upgrade disasters with GWIA and the POA's. I like what I see in GroupWise 8, but I don't want to destabilize our current system.
--RLayton
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Re: What about Windows...
Submitted by dlythgoe on 4 September 2008 - 5:55pm.
Windows is a definitely one of our supported server platforms and it is very robust . We do the same tests on every platform. About 70% of our customers are running OES/NetWare, 25% running SLES and about 5% on Windows. We simply talk about OES and Linux more, but Windows is very solid. This is one of the huge benefits to having a cross-platform solution. Many times testing on multiple platforms roots out issues that only exhibit themselves on one of the platforms.
Our competitors have no claim here!!
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70% still running on OES/Netware
Submitted by anonymous (not verified) on 5 September 2008 - 6:43am.
That's a very interesting statistic, regarding 70% of [Groupwise] customers still running on OES/Netware.
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Bonsai on Windows
Submitted by anonymous (not verified) on 4 September 2008 - 7:08pm.
I was involved in the beta, unfortunately not very vocally due to the timing of many things in my life and the timing of the beta, however every release was checked and run on Windows environments and I am very happy with this release. Early v7 was pretty average, but I think 8 is MUCH MUCH better. My only regret is my inability to be even more involved than I was. I can assure you this product was well tested on Windows 2003 and R2 Server and Issues raised were resolved.
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GW8
Submitted by Anonymous on 3 November 2008 - 8:58am.
I have had issues trying to install GW8 Beta on a windows 2003 Server platform. Do I need to install Edirectory first and what other issues may I encounter?
Mark Morgan
mmorgan@mountaincitymeat.com
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Congrats
Submitted by TimBaum (not verified) on 4 September 2008 - 9:44am.
I've download and installed the beta in our lab. I actually upgraded a test 7.0.2 environment without issue.
I'm glad i can actually use the GW Linux client with some level of productivity now. And the published cals are cool. Will save me many phone calls trying to play the "scheduling" game.
Even our test BES server continued to work!!
This is great release but here are my only two wish items.
1. Sorting by date in Webaccess
2. Ability to create an "All day Event" in Webaccess
Other than this is a great release, I love being able to right click and create an appointment on the day I select.
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More considered early feedback on Bonsai Beta
Submitted by Anonymous on 4 September 2008 - 1:26pm.
Hello Dean
I have now had a chance to look at the Windows client and the Webaccess improvements and am left thinking that rather than calling it GrpupWise 8.0 wouldn't a more appropriate name be GroupWise 7 SP4!!!???
There are definitely all sorts of minor improvements that would be very welcome but I was hoping (after 2-3 years of waiting) that there would be some major leaps in the end-user interface portions. To me it is very much the same as before.
Hopefully there are improvements in the Outlook Connector to make it really viable in a corporate environment (where users share mailboxes to some extent). I am also eagerly anticipating the good things that might arise out of the introduction of "stubbing" support.
I've only spent 2-3 hours looking at it all so it is early days but right now I feel a bit disappointed with the whole thing.
Do you know if the issue with GW-Edir sync by the MTA not handling admin-defined fields when the MTA is on Linux is fixed in Bonsai?
--Simon Tideswell
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Re: Early Feedback...
Submitted by dlythgoe on 4 September 2008 - 6:04pm.
A lot of the "under whelmed" is by design. The features are just under the surface. You know, as well as I do, how difficult it is for users to absorb a lot of change. We tried our best to maintain the same general look and feel and surface those features that will be most beneficial and provide the most productivity gains.
There are definitely headline features like Web Panels in the Home Folders, Contact Management, Task Management and cross-enterprise calendaring. However, a ton of power, usability, learnability (is that a word??), is gained by those enhancements and improvements that improve how a user works. The tag line of "GroupWise that thinks and works like you do" really reflects the flexibility and power of a few hundred smaller changes and is more easily learned, absorbed and incorporated in a user's daily activities.
GroupWise 8 is the release that your users have been waiting for - Check out several of the Training Tutorial Videos to get a better feel. From the main menu - Help | Training and Tutorials or http://www.brainstorminc.com/cbt/gw8/index.html
By the way - we will not be delivering another Outlook Connector with GroupWise 8. We will continue to evaluate our options for those users who simply want the Outlook experience, but there is not a 'new' Outlook Connector in GroupWise 8.
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Outlook Connector is a Sales Tool
Submitted by anonymous (not verified) on 10 September 2008 - 3:17pm.
The reality is many companies use Windows desktops and Microsoft Office. Windows desktops work well with Windows domains, Office comes with Outlook, and Outlook ties into a lot of software. The OES team finally heard people and is coming out with Domain Services for Windows. When Domain Services for Windows is combined with a quality Outlook connector for Groupwise there is a solution to significantly lower costs in many businesses without anyone noticing the backend change. When you can sit a user down at a test computer, let them play with things, and they can't figure out what is different you have a winning solution knowing you saved a small fortune. Sure, it would be great to get users of Windows tool to migrate to Novell desktop tools but it is a tough sell. For existing customers an Outlook connector is probably low priority... they already get by without one. If you want to get Novell into new customers a good Outlook connector and Domain Services for Windows are good selling points.
Your statistics show 70% OES/Netware, 25% SLES, and 5% Windows server deployments. Obviously the server market in general does not have Windows at only 5%, Windows is the leader in operating system installs. This means there is far more growth potential trying to capture customers running Windows server and most of those customers with no Linux or Netware are going to be using Windows desktops, Windows domains, and Microsoft Office and will not be running Novell clients. The easiest route to getting into this market is to leave the desktop functioning as usual and change the back end. If you mess with the front end people will complain about their contacts not syncing with CRM, iPhones, Palms, and the myriad of other things that have desktop sync to Outlook, they will complain that the interface is confusing (because it is new to them), and then there will be those people who wrongly believe anything with a Novell logo on it is outdated.
If Groupwise is going to be here to stay it will need to find a way into new customers at a greater rate than it looses them. As Netware installs retire (70% of you current market) there will be Groupwise customers that may choose to go all Microsoft. There needs to be a path to bring "all Microsoft" customers the other direction.
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Something that could help
Submitted by anonymous (not verified) on 11 September 2008 - 2:23pm.
regarding the statement, "There needs to be a path to bring "all Microsoft" customers the other direction." Something that could help is bundling the IDM Groupwise driver with Groupwise, at least until Groupwise isn't tied-down to eDirectory.
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Outlook Connector
Submitted by anonymous (not verified) on 11 September 2008 - 4:23pm.
I can't begin to tell you how disapointed I am by your last statement. In my opinion it's a strategic mistake to try penetrate the market (or hang on to the existing share) with "client" features, rather than selling Groupwise for its real strengths as a "backend" solution. For a lot of organisations such as mine, Outlook is the only possible client, so the Connector is critical.
With our users pushing for Office/Outlook 2007 and Novell still not making a move to support it, it's hard for me to see Groupwise as a viable alternative.
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Re: Outlook Connector
Submitted by dlythgoe on 12 September 2008 - 8:51am.
I am not sure how to explain this better. I get the feeling sometimes that many don't think we understand the importance of things like Outlook, iPhone, integrations, consistent administration, third-party APIs,etc.. Believe me - we get it.
We understand it is strategic, we understand it makes a great sales tool, we understand many users want this functionality, we understand that it is important to your organization.
I wish things were as simple as just understanding. :)
Outlook Connector has been a technical challenge - period. We have built it three times, three times it has met with a luke warm reception. Every time we built it, it required our most talented people and a lot of time and effort. It just so happens, when you make that kind of decision, there are trade-offs. Things like integrations, administration and APIs, more dramatic features, etc. become those trade-offs.
iPhone - this is a sensitive topic for several reasons. The bottom line, the SDK provided by Apple only supports Contacts. It does not support Mail or Calendar. GroupWise is unable to create a solution based simply on the SDK provided by Apple. What did Exchange do? They did nothing - Apple actually did something. They licensed ActiveSync and wrote the integration themselves directly to ActiveSync - not using or exposing any APIs to other vendors. Microsoft was not involved in any of the development for the iPhone/Exchange solution. I, personally, have had several conversations with Apple. They point us back to their SDK, which has the limitations already explained. There are other things in play, of which I am not at liberty to discuss the details. BUT - it does not mean we don't understand or that we have our heads in the sand. Believe me - we get it!
The discussions, ideas, comments and feedback are extremely valuable. They provide us the continued validation of what we should/can be doing.
Somehow I believe if we would have done all of the things you are now asking us to do, you would have asked for the things we did do in Bonsai. Once again - trade-offs. I am confident that the wish list would have been exactly what we are delivering in GroupWise 8 :)
Glass 1/2 full OR Glass 1/2 empty? Believe me - we will fill it up!
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From early glance after
Submitted by anonymous (not verified) on 6 September 2008 - 12:10pm.
From early glance after installing server and Windows client I will have to agree it feels much more like SP4.
The feature differences from 7 to 8 are very nice. However, it will be a hard sell to customers to upgrade or not switch to a new version of another groupware platform that provides more feature upgrades.
Our customers look at each groupware platform side by side when considering upgrading and paying for new licenses. They will look at 8 and say "oh, so contacts look as I would have expected now and webaccess is now easier to use as I expected with 7" and then look at the modern feel of other platforms.
I'm not making these statements to "hate" on Groupwise as I believe it is a very stable and affordable solution. I just don't think the time it took to make it to 8, and the subtle feature improvements justify calling it a whole new release.
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Yawn....
Submitted by anonymous (not verified) on 4 September 2008 - 4:17pm.
I would have to say that there is really not much new here. Has Novell cut back the number of developers so much that they had to use GW7 code? This is GW7 SP4.
Novell has no hope of making any progress with GroupWise. This is a dead product.
...Way too much hype for a product that was introduced a almost a year ago... LOL!
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Re: Sleepy
Submitted by dlythgoe on 4 September 2008 - 7:43pm.
The documentation for GroupWise 8, including 'What's New' can be found at http://www.novell.com/documentation/gw8
I think that if you can get past the fact that there are not flashing lights and a major user interface shift, you will find feature after feature that will delight you and improve the 'habitat' where you spend most of your day. The features of GroupWise 8 have been discussed several times in my blog - so I don't know exactly what you were expecting.
I will patiently listen to your opinions but I do not agree with them. :) There will always be naysayers. I tend to pay more attention to the 29 million+ users of GroupWise world wide (some analysts say 35 million) , in 21 different languages, to the government agencies in 47 of the 50 States, etc. etc. that use and love GroupWise. I have seen a significant increase in interest in GroupWise in the last 12 months and have seen more and more organizations evaluate their messaging platform and say - why am I paying so much for Exchange?
GroupWise Dead? I hardly think so!!
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Eat my own words...
Submitted by Anonymous on 6 November 2008 - 3:00pm.
It appears that I will now have to put on a baby's bib, set out a place mat, and dig out a plastic fork and padded spoon..... and hopefully I will be able to choke down the criticizing words I said before.
I have had the chance to sit down and play with the GroupWise 8 client for the last couple of weeks. The changes to the UI are not ground breaking, and it is true that there is not a lot of new eye candy, but there are many subtle changes that make the GroupWise experience much much easier and much more convenient.
Kudos to the GW team!
-Sleepy
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No Outlook Connector
Submitted by anonymous (not verified) on 4 September 2008 - 8:01pm.
Hi Dean,
No Outlook connector for Outlook 2007 is bad news indeed, I know a LOT of people were waiting for this. For some of my customers with the lack of compatibility of Groupwise to other products, which the connector allowed us to overcome, they will need to remain with GW7, which is a loss of revenue for Novell, or move to Exchange (more likely) which is an ever bigger loss. I am a huge fan of Groupwise, but it seems after making good steps in the direction of interoperability, Novell has stopped going down that path and are going to "try it alone" again.
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Re: No Outlook Connector...
Submitted by dlythgoe on 4 September 2008 - 8:58pm.
Not entirely true...
1. Organizations can still update to GroupWise 8, the Outlook Connector included in GroupWise 7 is still expected to run against a GroupWise 8 Post Office. Basic premise...old clients can continue to run against new agents. This allows the majority of your users who are not running the Outlook Connector to benefit significantly.
2. Integrations through the Outlook Connector have been one of the reasons we built the Connector in the first place. Most of our Outlook Connector customers have reported that this is more myth than fact. A lot of the integrated applications simply do not work 'right out of the box'.
3. The number of Outlook Connector users continues to be very very small - although sometimes influential.
4. We are not 'going it alone'. We are trying to find a solution to this problem that is more attainable. We built the Outlook Connector three times and it continues to have several very difficult and challenging technical issues that continue to plague performance, reliability and basic functionality. Many of these problems are created because of the differences in architecture between Exchange and GroupWise. Because of this complexity, the Outlook Connector consumed many of our most talented resources - at the expense of 99+% of our user base.
5. We also have several initiatives around integrations that I can not announce yet, but that we are working on. Hopefully many of them will be the ones you need.
Tell me - what applications are you currently integrating with the Outlook Connector that work flawlessly, or just as well, if you were an Exchange shop?
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Outlook Connector
Submitted by anonymous (not verified) on 8 September 2008 - 11:08am.
Dean
Like it or not, this is a necessary evil.
People KNOW outlook.
Senior managers won't have anything less.
It also makes migration of PST files, and from other systems where people have been using outlook easier.
Don't even suggest to use the tools that Novell provides for this, they don't work.
The only migration tool worth it's salt is formativ.
Regardless, as much as I hate Outlook, that connector is the only reason GW is still here.
As others have pointed out, GW 8 really brings GW to where it should have been some years ago.... we're not complaining, don't get me wrong, but I think people were expecting more !
As for me, I'm happy as most of the bugs and annoyances have been fixed with Bonsai !!!!
The Linux & Mac clients are a real improvement and will keep our Linux based guys very happy.
Keep up the good work.
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Re: Outlook Connector
Submitted by dlythgoe on 9 September 2008 - 12:22pm.
Believe me - we understand. We know why, we know who, and we know the pressures that many of you have endured.
Understanding the problem and coming up with a viable solution - however - are two separate problems. It is not a matter of us liking it or not - it is a matter of being able to create a solution or not.
Tell me - how many of your users today are using the Outlook Connector and are happy with it? Is it working as they expect and it is working with their applications? If so - what applications seem to be working?
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Outlook Connector
Submitted by anonymous (not verified) on 9 September 2008 - 10:37pm.
Hi,
we use Outlook Connector and encounter some problems, German "Umlaute" are sometimes not working, also some functions are slow. Also some functions do not work: German calender - "Notizen" - the are empty, version: 7.0.3
Walter
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Groupwise and Outlook Connector
Submitted by Anonymous on 17 September 2008 - 6:55am.
In my opinion, the Outlook connector isn't a success because, as you state, it isn't performing as it should. The problem is not only the Outlook front end, it's also connectivity to iPhone and a-like products. A small company (say 50 to 100 users)won't pay 2 or 3 hundred dollars per year to be able to sync one iPhone with Groupwise with a Notify solution. Couldn't you license ActiveSync (like Apple did) to improve this connectivity issue?
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Re Outlook connector
Submitted by alandpearson on 17 September 2008 - 5:15pm.
How many users of Outlook connector ?
3, that's right three.
Happy with it ? zero.
They always complain about things with it, namely they have to F5 refresh a lot, and calendaring is apparently weak.
I'm not going to shout more about this, as I feel your pain Dean and don't have an answer.
I have been coming under increasing pressure to push out outlook client, but that is mainly because GW7 client wasn't wonderful compared to Outlook.
Bonsai should change that and give them reason to shut up.
If it doesn't it'll not be the connector we want but a migration to exchange full stop.
It's just a list of issues that add up, that make GW poor in the eyes of users (iCal problems with external appointments, crappy contact interface (fixed in Bonsai), archiving that people don't understand (outlook drag to folder and it's done, what's with the separate Archive view ???), half assed blackberry integration, no native mobile field, the list goes on).
I think in fairness Bonsai is a real improvement and looks like a decent mail client.
It solves 60% of the issues that we personally have, and brings something good with the calendar publishing which is really added value here.
Dean, I don't know what to say about the outlook connector, but the fact that it is there is a good fallback for some people.
It sucks as an admin to hear (works with Exchange (read: iphone, BES mobile field, archiving interface)... when GW backend is the best.
And just so you know, we're (your customers) are getting fed up waiting for Novell to sort it. Bonsai is at least 1 year late ( I mean as far as I was concerned it was due last year !) and waiting for stuff to get fixed is long and painful.
Don't bet on people waiting on monetary for more features... you need to be adding stuff to Bonsai big time, no one can wait for new major features for years.
Microsoft can sit back and release every 4 years as they are the leader, they're not playing catch up... Novell can't :(
Anyway, rant over, and really looking forward to getting Bonsai into production !
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Re: No Outlook Connector...
Submitted by anonymous (not verified) on 9 September 2008 - 10:43pm.
Dean,
I have 4 customers the need Outlook Connector for third party application integration.
The also want to update to Outlook 2007 .... If we do not have an working connector for Outlook 2007 and GW 8 the replace GW with Exchange - this customers need the application integration with Outlook!
Walter
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Re: Outlook Connector
Submitted by Anonymous on 10 September 2008 - 12:09pm.
Walter,
We might have an easier time solving the 'integration' issue. What applications do they need integrated?
I find this often - instead of solving the 'real' problem, we are looking for alternative or short term solutions that miss the point. If integrations really are the problem, then let's concentrate on that problem instead of forcing a square peg into a round hole.
Dean
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Outlook Integration
Submitted by anonymous (not verified) on 11 September 2008 - 4:17am.
Dean,
as example two integrations:
1. CS BUS a travel application. They have two integrations, a MAPI integration and a Outlook integration. The MAPI integration is not very stable - seen a GW issue, the Outlook integration works.
2. UStrich a architectural application. The only have a Outlook integration. And the do not want to program an additional integration!
So the choices are limited...
Walter
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Mac Client
Submitted by alandpearson on 5 September 2008 - 4:18am.
Dean & Team,
Well done on the Mac client, it's a major improvement over the previous release.
Iit's now really 'pretty', a lot faster, and very very useable.
Good job !!!!
:)
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Notify on linux
Submitted by Anonymous on 5 September 2008 - 11:25am.
Are there any plans to have Groupwise Notify for the Linux client? This is the feature I miss the most from the Windows client.
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It's in the GW8 Linux
Submitted by mrj412 on 5 September 2008 - 3:03pm.
It's in the GW8 Linux client, oh happy days :-)
Can't wait to use the Linux client daily instead of Evolution.
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Both the Linux and Mac
Submitted by Anonymous on 5 September 2008 - 5:41pm.
Both the Linux and Mac clients have notify in Bonsai
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Mac iCal Support
Submitted by Anonymous on 5 September 2008 - 1:29pm.
Just wondering if there is a way to use iCal on the Mac to directly edit the groupwise calendar and not do a subscription?
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Re: iCal Support
Submitted by dlythgoe on 6 September 2008 - 7:14am.
Not sure I completely understand your question. We have put support for iCal in our GWIA - meaning that if you send or receive an appointment outside your organization, then it will be converted to/from iCal. This is supported for every GroupWise client including Windows, Mac, Linux, Web - because it is not a 'client' thing. So - using your Mac - you can schedule an appointment and if you include users outside of your enterprise, they will receive a iCal appointment. If a user outside of your enterprise sends you an appointment and it is received by the GWIA in iCal, it will be converted properly to a GroupWise appointment and show up in your calendar.
Or are you asking if you can directory import a *.ics file (iCal) into your calendar???
Dean
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I believe that the poster
Submitted by anonymous (not verified) on 25 September 2008 - 7:47am.
I believe that the poster is inquiring about support for Apple's calendaring program, which is called iCal (different from the calendar standard but same name).
Apple's iCal client prefers the CalDAV standard for client/server operations. I know that Novell supported this at one time using Hula, but I don't think it's ever made its way into Groupwise.
This would be another one of those "more natively Mac-like" issues to perhaps address in Groupwise 9.
Johnnie Odom
School District of Escambia County
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spam filters in GW 8
Submitted by rpiskac on 5 September 2008 - 8:22pm.
Are there any new spam filters with GW8? Exchange has a nice spam filter called intelligent Message Filter which works great. Does GW 8 have anything like that? spam is becoming a big issue for my users.
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RE: spam filters in GW 8
Submitted by dlythgoe on 6 September 2008 - 7:18am.
GroupWise continues to reply on our partners to provide SPAM and virus protection for your GroupWise system. Messaging Architects and GWAVA both have very good products.
GroupWise still has a 'Junk Mail' handling process for the client. It is still based on the user's selection of 'Trust, Junk, Block' and is based on email address or domain. This is not changed in GroupWise 8.
Dean
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Spam Filters in Exchange
Submitted by anonymous (not verified) on 12 September 2008 - 5:02am.
I take issue with the comment that Exchange has "great spam filtering". I have seen examples of the so-called Intelligent Message Filter and it is laughably bad, it filters out perfectly reasonable emails for no good reason. It might be capturing a lot of spam for you - it's probably also stopping a lot of perfectly OK emails too.
Simon
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Management
Submitted by anonymous (not verified) on 9 September 2008 - 2:13pm.
Sorry to drag this up again. (But not really!) Please accept my apologies in advance.
I have to say that the current answer for management is.., well it just SUCKS! Easy management of the network used to be one of Novell's strong points. Now, when asked to perform various management duties, it just leads to some HEAVY DRINKING!
Every product seems to be flailing around the management problem. Novell needs to pick ONE direction and every product needs to follow AND implement it. FAST! This situation is inexcusable and has gone on for way too long.
No more web. No more JAVA. Give me binaries for the platforms we need.
If you can compile native binaries for the GroupWise agents, why can't the same be done for the management utilities.
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While echo your thoughts on
Submitted by Anonymous on 10 September 2008 - 10:15am.
While echo your thoughts on Novell's problem with supporting a single management direction, I can't say I echo your desire for no web or java management interfaces.
I prefer web interfaces for management. And i like java. I like for the same reason Google and M$ are moving towards web based apps. They free me from the shackles of always needing my laptop ready because it has an install of an app i need.
So, I do "understand" Novell's difficulty here. If they tried to please you they would displease me.....
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GW8 initial Usage Feedback !!!
Submitted by anonymous (not verified) on 9 September 2008 - 10:00pm.
I've had GW8 running in part of my production environment since Monday !
(Upgrade was from 703HP1 and covered 1 of 4 Domains, 1 PostOffice, 1 GWIA, 1 BES, and 4 Teaming connections).
My first impressions have all been good ones. Backend upgrade was quite quick with no real issues. I have 4 GW8 Windows client's running at the moment and the feedback has been very positive.
I have to say that user reaction to the initial simple format client view was one of being a little underwhelmed, but this did pass as users got under the hood and started to explore and customise.
It took a good 2 day's of production use before I start to really get my head around all the changes, so working your way through the training material is highly recommended. For the people thinking that GW8 is just a GW7 sp4 I suggest you have a read of the GW8 Client user guide, and review all the Brainstorm training stuff.
Scott Moreman
Sydney Australia
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