Also known as Sequoia, Novell’s GroupWise 7 provides support for Windows, Macintosh and Linux clients, as well as Microsoft Corp’s Outlook, and new interfaces for integrating GroupWise with service-oriented architectures via SOAP and XML. The new version also comes with a pre-bundled license to Novell’s SUSE Linux Enterprise Server operating system and will be supported until 2015, as Novell maintains its commitment to the collaboration software despite its ongoing Hula open source collaboration software project.
GroupWise 7 will be followed by releases codenamed Aspen in 2006 and Cedar in 2008 as the company attempts to convince current and potential users that GroupWise has a future despite all the interest in the Project Hula development, which is based on Novell’s NetMail web-based email, calendaring, and address book server.
GroupWise Aspen is currently scheduled for release in the fall of 2006 and will concentrate on improvements for team collaboration and new data backup capabilities, as well the enablement of more partner applications through programming interfaces.
Spring 2008 should see the delivery of GroupWise Cedar, which is focused on connecting GroupWise to users on any platform and further enhance team collaboration.
Waltham, Massachusetts-based Novell has a significant installed base to look after with GroupWise, and it is also attempting to grow its share of the market for integrated collaborative environments, or ICE, as research company IDC calls it.
The research company last year said Novell has 7.0% of the $1.66bn market in 2003, up 1.2%. That still puts it a long way behind Microsoft, which grew its share 6.2% for 46.4% of the market, taking top spot from IBM, which fell 2.5% to 42.7%.
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