Novell Inc has added a series of new features to its GroupWise email application in the form of the GroupWise 5.5 Enhancement pack. The additions, which will cost $20 per user or come free to existing customers with maintenance contracts, feature support for POP, IMAP and LDAP internet-based email applications enabling users to access web accounts from their GroupWise client. Responses to those messages will also keep the original domain name even though they are written inside GroupWise. It also comes with full HTML editing, allowing users to cut and paste web-based text and links into GroupWise emails and edit that text accordingly.
In terms of remote access to GroupWise email, Tom Rhoton, director of product marketing for GroupWise, said Novell has cut the number of hops the messages have to take by two steps, increasing download speeds by a factor of ten.
The WebAccess client, which lets users check their mail over the internet using a standard browser, can now work with any standard web server. It used to be written in CGI script, Rhoton said, but now we’ve thrown that out and rewritten it in Java which means it can run on anything.
Novell has also introduced enhancements which will enable administrators to gain browser-based access to GroupWise post office and message transfer agents. The latter monitor the amount of email traffic, user connections and transfer and storage of data. In the past, administrators used to have to sit at the management console on site to interrogate the agents but now they can simply access the system remotely, using any standard browser, Rhoton said. In addition, Novell has added single sign- on support for GroupWise to NDS which means that users won’t have to key in a separate password for GroupWise when they log on to read and write messages.
