Novell Inc has launched Release 5 of its GroupWise groupware application as the latest weapon in the company’s desperate battle to recreate itself for the Internet age. Indeed, all of the major enhancements with the new version relate to the Internet, the most notable being the inclusion of a Universal Mail Box. This is designed to provide a single point of access for personal diary maintenance, group scheduling, tasks, voice mail, facsimile messages and other message types. Through a new WebAccess module, the Mail Box is accessible from any Web browser, according to the company. Document management features are said to include the ability to collaborate on shared folders, perform version control, security capabilities, and check-in-check-out privileges, while the company has also added a search capability which it says enables users to search for documents or messages regardless of their location on the server. The new version also incorporates native support for TCP/IP and the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol/Multi-purpose Internet Mail Exchange messaging standards, and Novell is planning support for Internet Message Access Protocol, Post Office Protocol, and Lightweight Directory Access Protocol; this will appear shortly, according to the company. GroupWise 5 is due to ship for the Windows NT, and Windows95 and 3.1 systems towards the end of October, with Macintosh and Unix support following during the first quarter of next year. It is to be priced at the same level as GroupWise 4, starting at $720 for a five-user license, and rising to $32,625 for a 250-user license. The company is also releasing a software development kit and open object application programming interface designed to encourage third-party developers to work on complementary applications. Novell also sketched out its plans for GroupWise, which include an initiative dubbed The Jefferson Project: this is planned as an easy way for companies to publish information in the Web’s HyperText Mark- up Language, HTML, by automating the process of converting documents into the Mark-up Language format. The intention is to enable documents to reside in a GroupWise library, and dynamically displayed in Mark-up Language format when they are requested by a Web user, or through a search. In this way, according to Novell, Web pages will no longer need to be updated separately from the documents on which they are based, since any alteration to the original document will be reflected in the Web page the next time it’s requested.
