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The Collaboration Portfolio within Novell continues to expand and accelerate. We have more products and solutions shipping or scheduled to ship than ever before. Engineering is working very closely with Product Management and Product Marketing to make sure we understand each deliverable and its impact on other groups and our customers and partners.

We will continue to communicate and share information as it becomes available.

GroupWise

GroupWise has two support packs to deliver in the next several months. GroupWise 7.0.4, the last support pack for the GroupWise 7 product line, is scheduled to release in March. We have our first release candidate and we have turned the product over to our QA department for final validation and test cases. We are still chasing a few issues that we hope to resolve before March, but this release will be schedule driven. The release of GroupWise 7.0.4 will signal the beginning of the "End of Life" process. Please review the Support LIfe Cycle to familiarize yourself with terms and conditions. After 7.0.4, we will not be releasing any more support packs or Hot Patches for the GroupWise 7 product line. Fixes for problems you encounter with GroupWise 7 will be addressed in the GroupWise 8 product line and we encourage you to upgrade. Upgrade in order to get fixes and support - and more importantly - for the increased productivity and enhancements that come with GroupWise 8...even GroupWise 8.0.2 - which will be shipping in a few months.

GroupWise 8.0.2 is currently scheduled to release in June. It is targeted, of course, to resolve customer reported issues and defects. However, it also contains several enhancements. These features are currently code complete in the product and will be part of the 8.0.2 deliverable.

- Limit the # of recipients on an email
- Access Control Lists for the 'use' of System Distribution Lists
- Limit the types of attachments a user can send
- Teaming Integration - Searches in GroupWise also search Teaming repository
- Conferencing Integration - Schedule a Conference call as easily as scheduling an appointment; Join a conference call directly from my appointments

Novell Teaming

Novell Teaming 2.1 (Cortez) will ship today/tomorrow BETA 6. It is on schedule to release on February 22nd. The beta response for this product has been superb! This is a great step in the right direction and with the added benefits that will be available in GroupWise 8.0.2, this product is maturing before our eyes.

Here are a few of the features you will find in the latest version of Teaming.

- Import and Export capability
- Undelete
- Data quotas
- Mobility access
- Landing Page Editor
- Extension Administration
- Task/Calendar Improvements

Take the time to look at how your organization can benefit from the content management features and team building attributes of Teaming 2.1

The release after Cortez is code named Durango. Durango is scheduled to ship in the Fall. Requirements have been defined and about 80% of the details worked out. The engineering team has already begun to work on Durango and it has a very focused 'Usability' strategy. Our Human Factors team has been working for several months in helping us define the correct user interaction for several of the major components that will be reworked and improved in Durango.

Novell Conferencing

We have not updated our Novell Conferencing product for some time. We plan to announce our strategy and a new product direction at BrainShare 2010 in Salt Lake City. We are very excited about the hosted/SaaS offering and the slick new experience available with this upcoming release. Come to BrainShare for all of the details!

Novell DataSynchronizer (Gradenko and Lightning)

This is the product and release that all of our customers are anticipating and expecting delivery. We are acutely aware of the situation and the schedule delays. Instead of apologizing, I will simply tell you what we are doing and where we are at with this project and its deliverables.

We have shifted all of our focus to the Mobility solution and replacement for GMS. The Novell DataSynchronizer Mobility Pack is scheduled to be in Alpha any day now. We expect and are planning on being in BETA by BrainShare in March. This has been a frustrating project and I know that many of you are disappointed with our progress and schedule slips. This is the highest priority deliverable in our portfolio. We can only request your continued patience as we work out the technical details. We have added resources, we have cut scope, and we are working extra hours. We know we can not sacrifice functionality or quality. GMS is the functionality benchmark and we need to expand device support and improve quality. This will continue to be a challenge, but we hope it will be a solution that not only meets our mobility needs, but also will be the building blocks for our 3rd-Party integration strategy.

Novell Pulse

Novell Pulse is the latest addition to our Collaboration portfolio. This cloud-based, real-time web tool is an entry into the expanding Cloud and Hosted collaboration marketplace. Novell Pulse is planning to release in mid-2010. Many details and plans surrounding this product have not been made publicly available. Expect to learn a lot about this offering at BrainShare 2010.

Novell NetWare

I need to talk about one more thing - NetWare. As most of you probably know, NetWare will begin its 'end of life' process on March 7th, 2010. Hopefully you have already upgraded your GroupWise system to OES/SLES. If you are still running GroupWise on NetWare, now is the time to upgrade to both OES and GroupWise 8.

The next major release of GroupWise - code named Windermere - will not support NetWare and will also be 64-bit. I believe it is better to plan these upgrades appropriately. NetWare to OES; GroupWise 7 to 8 and eventually 32-bit to 64-bit applications.

I think that wraps it up! A few survey questions to let us know of your organization's plans and future. Please answer these questions:

1. If you are still on NetWare, when are you upgrading to OES?
2. If you are still on GroupWise 7, when are you upgrading to GroupWise 8?
3. Does your organization have plans or initiatives to go to the Cloud or to SaaS with any product - including email?

Thanks,

Dean

Disclaimer: As with everything else at Cool Solutions, this content is definitely not supported by Novell (so don't even think of calling Support if you try something and it blows up).

It was contributed by a community member and is published "as is." It seems to have worked for at least one person, and might work for you. But please be sure to test, test, test before you do anything drastic with it.