Novell Technology Enables Aberdeen City Council to Communicate More Effectively

Press Release

Council Successfully Completes Migration to Novell GroupWise Platform

Bracknell, UK — Jan. 9, 2006 — Novell UK Limited (“Novell”) has announced that it has successfully rolled out a standardised collaborative working environment at Aberdeen City Council. The new platform, based on Novell GroupWise, will serve 3,500 Council employees.

The migration to GroupWise, which builds on Novell's existing relationship with Aberdeen City Council, has given Council employees a reliable, scaleable and fully integrated e-mail and scheduling system that will allow them to increase their productivity and communicate more effectively across organisational boundaries. The platform brings the Council in line with Government and industry initiatives that demand that organisations have a communications structure that can interface with their core business applications.

Thanks to the Novell GroupWise WebAccess feature that allows users to access their email, calendar and tasks from any standard web browser, Aberdeen City Council users can now benefit from flexible working practices. For further mobility, the Council deployed GWAnywhere by Messaging Architects – a Novell Technology Partner – to enable synchronisation with virtually any mobile device. It is estimated that the number of users of the system will rise to 6,000 over the next five years.

Aberdeen City Council decided to grow its existing relationship with Novell by selecting GroupWise over 43 other offerings, including Microsoft Exchange and Lotus Notes. The decision was based on the strength of Novell's price/performance ratio, product reliability and directory capability. Taking six months from planning to implementation, Novell deployed a six-node NetWare 6.5 Cluster running GroupWise 6.5. The Council was already running Novell eDirectory as their chosen directory for authentication.

“Novell’s GroupWise platform has allowed us to move from a set of personal productivity tools to a reliable, collaborative environment that is fully integrated with our existing infrastructure”, said Jim Lamb, Assistant Director of IT for Aberdeen City Council. He continued: “The system lets our users consult emails and share appointments wherever they happen to be, via any internet-connected web-browser or portable devices such as PDAs while on the road. Novell’s commitment to existing and emerging standards ensures that the solution will be viable for the future, and has provided us with a clear upgrade path. This all adds up to a more effective and productive Council that can better serve the needs of Aberdeen’s 212,000 residents.”

Aberdeen City Council is responsible for all local government services in Aberdeen, and is the city's largest employer with a workforce of around 11,000. It had previously relied on disparate email and calendar products using Pegasus and Lotus Organiser. However, government and compliance initiatives made it imperative that the Council had a more controlled and integrated communications structure. The Council also wanted a platform that would facilitate collaboration by allowing users to access it over the web and through portable devices such as PDAs. The products in use did not have the depth of features required to achieve these objectives.

Training and support
A Novell Support Contract was put in place at the outset of the project. In addition, Novell Training provided a customised training plan for Aberdeen City Council, and gave advanced training for the Council's systems administrators. The user training plan involved training a team of 100 ‘mentors’ to provide support for the wider userbase at the Council, and the deployment of Computer Based Training facilities.

About Novell

Novell, Inc. (Nasdaq: NOVL) is a leading provider of infrastructure software and services to over 50,000 customers in 43 countries. With more than 20 years of experience in data centres, workgroup and desktop solutions, Novell's 6,000 employees, 5,000 partners and support centres around the world are meeting customer requirements for identity-driven computing and Linux solutions. By providing enterprise-class software and support for commercial and open source software, Novell delivers increased operating flexibility and choice at a lower total cost of ownership. More information about Novell can be found at http://www.novell.com.

Press Contact:

Mehran Khalili
Text 100
020 8846 0738
mehran.khalili@text100.co.uk