Novell GroupWise vs. Microsoft Exchange Competitive Guide
Novell Cool Solutions: Feature
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Posted: 23 Dec 2002 |
Download the pdf version of this guide here.
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Introduction | ![]() |
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If you are like most organizations using Microsoft* Exchange 5.5, you face a vexing dilemma. If you decide to move to Exchange 2000, you face a difficult and costly migration. If you stay with Exchange 5.5, you will still have to move eventually when Microsoft phases out support for Exchange 5.5. To make matters worse, whether you migrate from Exchange 5.5 or not, you still have to face the odious Microsoft Volume Licensing 6.0 and Software Assurance programs, which in most cases mean significantly increased costs. Novell has an attractive alternative: Move now from Exchange 5.5 to Novell GroupWise 6.5. The migration is easier and less costly, and you'll reap many benefits. You'll avoid Microsoft Volume Licensing 6.0 and Software Assurance. You'll have a more secure system. You'll simplify system management. And you'll better position your company for the future. |
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Why Migrate From Exchange? | ![]() |
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There are several major business reasons why many organizations are migrating away from Microsoft Exchange, including:
High cost of upgrade Increased licensing cost is only part of the problem. As you well know, each time you upgrade Exchange, you have to deal with architectural changes that drive up the cost of upgrade. In upgrading from Exchange 5.0 to 5.5, you had to deal with revised data store formats resulting in painful conversion of data stores. Now look what you have to deal with in upgrading from Exchange 5.5 to Exchange 2000: to be able to take advantage of the full functionality of Exchange 2000 you must:
The effort and cost are substantial. Moreover, you'll need to retrain your IT staff. To make matters worse, you must run in native mode to take advantage of all the new Exchange 2000 features. Unfortunately, you can't switch your Exchange system to native mode until you have upgraded all servers to Exchange 2000 and Windows 2000, which in many instances requires swapping out old hardware for new. It's no wonder that the Sunbelt survey cited above also reveals that almost 40 percent of respondent companies said they plan to move away from Microsoft. Increased costs of Volume Licensing 6.0 and Software Assurance In the same CIO Magazine article, customers complain that they are between a rock and a hard place. Either they pay annual Software Assurance fees beyond their normal licensing fees at the high rate of 25 cents on the dollar for servers and 29 cents on the dollar for PCs, or they have to pay for new licenses when they upgrade. In the article, the CIO of Rock-Tenn Co., a $1.5 billion packaging maker, said the 29 percent annual rate for Software Assurance was twice what he thought was justified for a subscription. The CIO says he expected to pay Microsoft approximately $1 million for upgrades without Licensing 6.0 and Software Assurance. Under the new pricing and licensing plans, he says, "Either I pay $1 million extra now [to sign up for 6.0 and Software Assurance], or $8 million three years from now," which is when he would prefer to get a Windows or Office upgrade. If the CIO upgrades when he wants to, on a timetable that makes sense for Rock-Tenn, it will cost his company $7 million more than if he upgrades now, when he doesn't want to. As you know, the August 31, 2002 deadline to make your decision on your licensing future with Microsoft has already passed, and none of the options were attractive.
Because they are feeling squeezed by Microsoft, many organizations are considering a fifth option: moving away from Microsoft altogether. High risk of susceptibility to virus attacks The Code Red and the Love Bug attacks alone cost Exchange users an estimated $11 billion in 2001 and accounted for more than one-quarter of the costs associated with lost productivity and virus damage control for all viruses reported during the period of 1999-20014. Difficult to manage and support Exchange management and support costs are high due to several factors, including:
Rocky path to the future A recent article on vnunet.com,6 a U.K. technology news site, states "SP3 for Exchange 2000, which Microsoft claimed would now be available, is anticipated to be the last one, as the company diverts its attention to Titanium development. "Instead of issuing a patch for Windows 2000 we decided to go back and make all of the improvements for .Net,' said Barry Goffe, group manager, enterprise marketing strategy at Microsoft." The same article also carried another quote that is unsettling to Exchange users. Gary Tugwell Smith, Exchange product manager at Microsoft said, "Architectural changes, functions and the way the software interacts with Windows means Titanium will only work with .Net." Although Microsoft has promised that Titanium will be backward compatible with Windows 2000, Ewan Dalton, architectural systems engineer at Microsoft U.K., said, "The first release of Titanium will be at least feature compatible with the current Exchange 2000, but improvements to cover major features [as promised for .Net] will come in later versions."7 |
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Novell GroupWise: An Alternative With a Future | ![]() |
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Novell GroupWise provides an attractive alternative to Exchange 5.5 customers. By migrating to GroupWise 6.x, you can solve the dilemma you now face with Exchange. And in the process, you'll strengthen security, reduce costs, simplify administration and support and better position your organization for the future. Lower migration costs According to Ferris Research8, a major upgrade such as that from Exchange 5.5 to Exchange 2000 ends up costing between $50 and $700 per user with a typical cost of $400 per user. Compare this to the $120 to $140 per user that Novell customers have experienced in migrating from Exchange 5.5 to Novell GroupWise 6 - even on smaller installations of 500 users. More advantageous licensing Novell offers flexible licensing options that include traditional purchase or maintenance subscriptions. Licensing features include discounted pricing, worldwide availability, upgrade protection, technical services, consulting and other services to those customers who qualify. Novell offers several purchasing options to customers who wish to take advantage of their volume purchases. In addition, Novell offers a competitive upgrade from Exchange to GroupWise, so you don't have to pay full price as you would if you stay with Microsoft and upgrade to Exchange 2000. Another factor in favor of GroupWise is that, unlike Microsoft licensing that is device-centric, GroupWise licensing is user-centric, and that saves you money. For example, with GroupWise, you don't pay additional license fees for mobile users who need access from their office desktop and from wireless devices. Exchange wireless access, on the other hand, requires an additional Exchange client access license (CAL) and the addition of a Mobile Information Server (MIS) CAL for that device. Stronger security Furthermore, ICSA Laboratory's 7th Annual Computer Virus Prevalence Survey 2001 found that the most prevalent type of viruses in 2000/2001 were those that spread by attacking the address book and auto-e-mailing themselves to discovered addresses. GroupWise implements a far more secure address book then Exchange, one that is fully encrypted and has a unique API. As a result, even if a virus does infect a GroupWise user, it would not be propagated to additional users and cause widespread damage as it would in an Exchange system. Viable Solutions, a large reseller that maintains both Exchange and GroupWise, tracked the downtime of their clients due to viruses. The chart below, derived from that study, shows the average number of system down days for both Exchange and GroupWise caused by some of the most infamous viruses of recent years. For Exchange users, the hit was severe, ranging from one to four days per virus attack. For GroupWise users, the downtime was so low it didn't even register. ![]() Simplified administration and support Exchange is difficult to manage due to a variety of factors. It is notoriously unreliable and highly susceptible to virus attacks. In addition, Exchange 5.5 administrators have to manage each domain separately. GroupWise, on the other hand, has rock solid reliability and is far less susceptible to virus attacks than Exchange. In addition, GroupWise is tightly integrated with Novell eDirectory, the industry's most popular directory service. So you can enjoy the efficiencies of single-point, directory-based management. As a result, it takes far less administrators to manage GroupWise than to manage Exchange. Exchange customers report typical ratios of users to administrators that range between 50 to 1 and 500 to 1. By comparison, GroupWise customers are able to maintain user-to-administrator ratios of over 10,000 to 1. Nathan Parton, Senior Systems Administrator at Thames Valley University in London reports that they comfortably manage about 40,000 users with only 1 administrator. Think of the impact these kinds of ratios will have on your system management costs. Smooth path to the future
For customers that select maintenance, Novell has published a roadmap with two major versions beyond the GroupWise 6.5 release in February 2002. Gartner Group has said that GroupWise investments are good at least until 20059. (That's as far into the future as Gartner makes estimates.) |
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Novell Eases Migration From Exchange | ![]() |
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Now is the time to get out of the Exchange mire and move into the more secure, less costly, easier to manage and far more advanced GroupWise environment. Your users, your administrators and your chief financial officer will all thank you. And you'll rest easier knowing you no longer face the Exchange dilemma. As we have seen, it is easier to migrate from Exchange 5.5 to GroupWise 6.x than it is to migrate from Exchange 5.5 to Exchange 2000. Because GroupWise installs on both Windows NT and Windows 2000 Servers, you can operate in a mixed Windows NT/Windows 2000 environment keeping your familiar platforms and still enjoy the full, rich functionality of GroupWise 6.5. Compare this to Exchange, which requires you to run in native mode in an all Windows 2000 environment to take advantage of the full functionality of Exchange 2000. In addition, Novell and its partners provide a variety of tools that facilitate the most complex part of the migration - the data store. For example, Novell partner products CompuSven E-mail Shuttle* and Com/Axis UniAccess facilitate migration of the message store from Exchange to GroupWise. For more information on migrating from Exchange to GroupWise, refer to the Novell document "Migrating to Novell GroupWise from Microsoft Exchange." You'll find it at http://www.novell.com/collateral/4820915/4820915.pdf. |
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Competitive Summary | ![]() |
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The following bullets review some of the main reasons why you should consider migrating away from Microsoft Exchange 5.5 to Novell GroupWise.
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Novell Product Training and Support Services | ![]() |
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For more information about Novell's worldwide product training, certification programs, consulting and technical support services, please visit: www.novell.com/services. |
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More Information | ![]() |
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Contact your local Novell Solutions Provider, or visit the Novell Web site at: www.novell.com. You can purchase Novell Solutions online at: www.novell.com/shopnovell. You may also call Novell at: 1-888-321-4272 US/Canada, 1-801-861-4272 Worldwide, 1-801-861-8473 Facsimile. Novell, Inc. 2002 Novell, Inc. All rights reserved. Novell and GroupWise are registered trademarks, eDirectory is a trademark and Novell Consulting is a service mark of Novell, Inc. in the United States and other countries. *Active Directory, Microsoft, Outlook, Windows and Windows NT are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation. E-Mail Shuttle is a trademark of CompuSven, Inc. All other third-party trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
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