Novell To Release Collabra Share 2.0 For GroupWise

Collabra Share 2.0 for GroupWise provides customers with more capable, compatible and cost-effective Discussion solution than Lotus Notes

NEW ORLEANS -- May 9, 1995 -- Novell, Inc. today announced Collabra Share 2.0 for GroupWise, which allows GroupWise users to create replicated electronic discussion forums in which they can integrate, manage and act on information. Collabra Share 2.0 for GroupWise provides users with better tools for accessing and acting on information at a significantly lower total cost of ownership than Lotus Notes.

In addition, Novell and Collabra will jointly develop the Collabra Share 2.0 Replication Agent as a NetWare Loadable Module (NLM), which will allow forum replication on existing NetWare 4 servers rather than requiring a separate Windows machine. The Replication Agent NLM will tie multiple networks together using existing GroupWise infrastructure, allowing replication to take place between GroupWise servers or over the Internet.

Collabra Share 2.0, combined with the integration between GroupWise and NetWare 4, provides a far more cost-effective collaborative computing solution than Lotus Notes. Collabra Share 2.0 for GroupWise leverages the existing messaging infrastructure of GroupWise 4.1, allowing users to easily move between their individual messages in the GroupWise Universal In Box and group discussions in Collabra Share 2.0. The product also leverages the user environment of GroupWise, creating seamless interaction for conferencing, e-mail, calendaring/scheduling, forms creation and distribution, database access and task management.

"Collabra Share 2.0 for GroupWise places Novell in an excellent position to provide its customers with a competitive collaborative computing solution that leverages their investment in existing messaging and network infrastructures," said Bob Young, vice president of marketing, Novell GroupWare Division.

"With Collabra Share 2.0 for GroupWise, Novell's groupware offerings provide users with the primary benefits of Lotus Notes -- the ability to create and participate in electronic discussions and conferencing -- without the overhead involved in installing and maintaining the Lotus Notes infrastructure and development environment," said Young.

"Novell's delivery of Collabra Share 2.0 for GroupWise represents a big win for our customers and the Novell channel," said Eric Hahn, president and CEO of Collabra Share. "The combination of NetWare, GroupWise and Collabra Share illustrates the strength of Novell and Collabra's modular approach to collaborative computing over Lotus Notes' monolithic architecture."

Collabra Share 2.0 for GroupWise Features

Collabra Share 2.0 for GroupWise is more effective than Lotus Notes' most widely-used applications -- distributing information and hosting discussions. Collabra Share 2.0 for GroupWise provides features that make it easier for users to get to the information they need, alleviating information overload. Message Threading, which is continually maintained, provides members of a forum with a visual overview of any discussion, making it easy to see who said what to whom. Full Text Retrieval allows the members of a forum to find information quickly without having to know where it is stored. Relevance Ranking prioritizes responses to full text queries, making it easy for GroupWise users to focus on the most important information first.

The InfoNavigator helps users quickly work with large volumes of information. Hotlists, QuickLinks and QuickViews allow users to organize information in new ways and easily create hypertext documents at their desktop. The Later and Ignore features allow users to work with information at a time of their choosing: now, later or never. And team members can make and communicate key decisions more easily with a new Thread Summary. Collabra Share 2.0 also makes it possible to post contributions anonymously and to establish moderated discussions.

Collabra Share 2.0 for GroupWise is significantly less expensive to own and operate than Lotus Notes. In addition to relying upon GroupWise and NetWare for membership, storage and transport, it implements Policy-Based Administration to reduce the amount of time users spend managing forums.

Following the release of Collabra Share 2.0 for GroupWise, Novell will ship the Collabra Share 2.0 bi-directional replication agent for Lotus Notes, which allows Lotus Notes users to participate in Collabra Share forums. In addition, Novell will ship Collabra's bi-directional replication agent for Internet NewsGroups.

Pricing and Availability

Collabra Share 2.0 for GroupWise will be available to Novell's channel in July of 1995. For more information about Collabra Share 2.0 for GroupWise, customers may call Novell Information Services at (800) 861-2507.