Novell GroupWise 2012 Expands its Collaboration Capabilities
by Bill Ives
I have written about Novell products before, including Novell Pulse and Novell Teaming, and was pleased to recently speak with Kari Woolf, Senior Product Marketing Manager, Novell GroupWise and Dean Lythgoe, Director, Product Management, Novell Collaboration Solutions. The first question I had was the relationship between GroupWise, Pulse and Teaming.
The answer allowed Kari to explain how they have regrouped their collaboration product line. GroupWise is the individual collaboration tool that includes email and other features. Novell Vibe is the new name for their team collaboration tool, replacing Teaming and has new features. The most important capabilities of Pulse were added to both GroupWise and Vibe and it is no longer a separate product. They also took the very important step of completely integrating GroupWise and Vibe. Here is a sample GroupWise Vibe integration screen.
There are two additional products in the collaboration suite. Novell Data Synchronizer handles mobile connections and third party integration such as CRM systems. This is a critical capability because, as I have written several times, you need to be able to integrate the new school social tools with the old school enterprise apps for enterprise 2.0 to really work. (see for example: Integrating the Interactions with the Transactions). The other tool is Novell Messenger and it handles IM and presence. It comes with both GroupWise and Vibe.
Kari also shared some interesting data (provided by Osterman Research) that shows that email is still quite prevalent. The average worker spends 134 minutes a day on email, 61 minutes on the phone, 28 minutes on SMS and other related tools, and 11 minutes on social networking tools. This covers a little less than half the workday. It makes sense but I spend more time on Twitter and it is usually in short moments of “found” time. I also think that those who work at home, like me, are more likely to want this virtual outreach.
GroupWise 2012 and Vibe 3.2 are client/server apps and with hosted options available through third parties. The GroupWise Vibe integration allows for search queries with results from each, live Vibe data in email messages and embedded Vibe workspaces in the GroupWise folder list. GroupWise also provides icon badges for emails from such tools as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Vibe. There is also Skype integration providingclick to call, presence, and embedded SMS. This is a very useful feature. Below is a sample Skype screen.
There is also an improved Web version of GroupWise as more clients have requested this and you can see the screen below.
Novell has long had support for smart phones including iOS, Android, Windows Mobile, and Symbian. Now they have web templates specifically designed for the iPad to take advantage of its tablet features. You can view and select folders, compose and read: mail, appointments, tasks, and reminders. There is also calendar and name completion. Below is a sample iPad screen.
I like what they are doing in both reorganizing their product line in a way that makes sense and their focus on integration that is essential. The seamless move between email and the team collaboration platform will make collaboration very efficient.
