It’s a busy time at Novell, as it continues to support its “legacy” products
while moving forward with its robust Linux strategy.
In a series of
announcements this week, and one expected next week, Novell has managed to
lay out a roadmap for its future by strengthening its commitment to the past
and present.
Novell GroupWise, a long-standing, time-tested collaboration solution will
continue to be supported by Novell for at least the next four years with an
aggressive three-release cycle. GroupWise is billed by Novell as the No. 1
alternative to Microsoft Exchange and contains a similar calendar, e-mail and
task-management offering.
The company plans to release GroupWise “Sequoia” this summer, and it is expected
to bring new functionality and interface improvements. GroupWise “Aspen”
is targeted for a fall 2006 release and is expected to introduce new data
backup capabilities, as well as a renewed focus on enabling partner
applications. GroupWise “Cedar” is expected to be released in the spring of
2008 and will build on Sequoia and Aspen improvements, as well as extend
the platform options for the application.
“While Novell continues to garner many positive reviews for our Linux and
open source strategies, we also want to be clear that our faithful GroupWise
customers can look forward to a bright future with Novell and GroupWise on
the platform of their choice,” said David Patrick, general manager of
Platforms and Services for Novell.
Netware, Novell’s other principal legacy product, is
expected to receive a major boost next week when Novell Open Enterprise
Server (OES) is officially announced at the LinuxWorld show in Boston.
OES includes both SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 9 (SLES) and Novell
Netware in an integrated offering. OES is expected to include a new common
management interface that promises to make migration and management easier
for both Linux and Netware.
Novell’s SUSE Linux also benefited from a pair of announcements that aim to
further its penetration into the enterprise. SLES 9 has now been certified
to run mySAP Business suite on a long list of hardware. Novell also
announced that it would jointly be promoting SUSE Linux with IBM for use on
Big Blue’s Power platform.
As part of the promotion that ends in March,
the two partners are offering a 90-day free evaluation of SLES 9 on POWER,
including online software updates.
