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Novell Unveils Intranet Roadmap for GroupWise GroupWise 5 to Lead GroupWare Industry in Adoption of Java and Internet Technologies OREM, Utah -- December 10, 1996 -- Novell, Inc. today outlined additional details for the evolution of GroupWise as the industry's leading collaboration product for intranets. Novell will extend the definition and functionality of collaboration over intranets and the Internet by developing a universal GroupWise client based on Web and Java technologies, as well as other emerging industry standards. "We're going to change the way organizations view the groupware paradigm," said Stewart Nelson, vice president and general manager, Novell GroupWare Division. "The reality is that most organizations are a melting pot of technology, and they want their users, wherever they happen to be and whatever platform they happen to be working on, to be able to communicate and collaborate without having to replace an an entire technology infrastructure. And although we currently offer GroupWise for a variety of platforms, our ultimate goal is to provide both intranet and Internet users with robust collaboration tools that are truly universal and platform-independent, while maintaining the security, management and administration features that they've come to rely on from GroupWise." Today, GroupWise 5 is the industry's only expanded client/server E-mail system to include full document and image management capabilities as part of a new Universal Mail Box. The Universal Mail Box also gives users single-point access to personal calendaring, group scheduling, tasks, voice mail, faxes, documents, images and other message types both from the desktop and via the Internet using GroupWise WebAccess. Over the next 12 months, Novell will expand GroupWise support for Internet technologies and standards and introduce a more dynamic, Java-enabled version of GroupWise WebAccess, as well as a separate Java-based client. In addition, Novell will deliver the eagerly awaited technology initiative, the Jefferson Project, which will allow organizations to create and manage documents on the World Wide Web and on corporate intranets.
Supporting Open Standards Novell GroupWare Division has been a pioneer in the development and implementation of industry standards and will continue to play an integral role in the design of and adherence to future standards, particularly as they pertain to the Internet. GroupWise 5, which was released in September, currently provides native support for open Internet standards and protocols, including SMTP/MIME, HTML and TCP-IP, with support for POP3, LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol), IMAP4, S-MIME (Secure Multipurpose Internet Mail Extension), NNTP and others available in the first half of next year. Novell GroupWare Division participates in the following standards organizations: Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF); Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG), which oversees the IETF workgroups; World Wide Web Consortium (W3C); and Electronic Messaging Association (EMA).
GroupWise WebAccess When GroupWise WebAccess 4.1 was released in July 1996, it was Novell's first step toward the company's ultimate goal of a universal GroupWise client. For the first time, Internet users had a single product by which to communicate and collaborate with others over the World Wide Web. With GroupWise WebAccess, GroupWise users can access their Universal Mail Box from any machine with an Internet connection and an HTML-compliant browser. GroupWise WebAccess 5 is in final beta and available to GroupWise 5 users via Novell's Web site at http://www.novell.com/beta/index.jsp. In the first quarter of 1997, Novell will unveil a Java-enabled version of GroupWise WebAccess that will be compliant with any HTML 3.0 browser. This version of GroupWise WebAccess represents the second phase of Novell's plan to eventually offer a full-featured, universal GroupWise client that will be platform-independent. "Part of our decision to go with GroupWise was Novell's promise of a Web client that would offer the full functionality that we rely on with the desktop client. GroupWise WebAccess 4.1 was the first step in that direction," said David Voran, executive director of information technology at the University of Kansas Medical Center in Kansas City. "Our students and faculty currently use GroupWise WebAccess to communicate and share information from anywhere a Web browser is available -- on campus, at home, at a medical conference or out in the field. By adding the ability to send attachments and other enhancements to GroupWise WebAccess, we will be able to take collaboration to a whole new level."
Jefferson Project The Jefferson Project, code-named after the U.S. president who invented the public library system, will allow GroupWise users to leverage the powerful document management features of GroupWise to publish documents to the Web as easily as assigning user access to documents within GroupWise. Documents will reside in the GroupWise library and will be dynamically published to the Web by a server process whenver they are requested by a user, via a search or a specific URL. Any changes the author/creator makes either to the content or the access privileges of the document will be automatically reflected on the Web. Users looking for specific information on the corporate intranet will be able to search specific GroupWise libraries and will receive full-text indexes of specific documents rather than hundreds of difficult-to-decipher URLs. "Trying to find something using standard web forms and browsers can be either feast or famine," said David Strom, president of David Strom, Inc., a Port Washington, NY-based consultancy and Internet expert. "It is hard to know how to look for the right quality of information, especially as files move about or change. Plus, the URL doesn't really tell you anything about the document you are looking for -- it's just a pointer to a place. The Jefferson Project technology will change all that." By eliminating the need to update documents and links on the corporate Web site, Novell's Web document technology will simplify the administrator's job. When documents are updated in GroupWise, they are updated on the Web. GroupWise will automatically publish specified documents to the corporate intranet or the Web, enabling Web masters to spend more time performing mission critical work and less time translating documents into HTML or writing CGI scripts. In addition, the Jefferson Project technology will be integrated into the core GroupWise system and will provide GroupWise administrators with a familiar GroupWise interface for managing information on the Web. For more information about GroupWise, call 1-800-861-2507 or visit Novell's home page at http://www.novell.com/groupwise. Founded in 1983, Novell (NASDAQ:NOVL) is the world's leading provider of network software. The company offers a wide range of network solutions for distributed network, Internet, intranet and small-business markets. Novell education and technical support programs are the most comprehensive in the network computing industry. Information about Novell's complete range of products and services can be accessed on the World Wide Web at http://www.novell.com. Novell is a registered trademark and GroupWise and GroupWise WebAccess are trademarks of Novell. All other companies and products are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies.
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