* GroupWise users are not stranded
There’s a well-known phenomenon of relationships that makes the police wary of answering calls about a domestic disturbance. Domestic partners who can be arguing tooth and nail one moment will join together and confront the police jointly when they arrive on the scene. Family members who barely speak to each other will suddenly deliver encomiums when an outsider says something bad about one of them.
Regular readers know that GroupWise isn’t at the top of my list of great software applications – not even of collaboration packages. Stop me in the hallway and I’ll tell you – at length – why I don’t like it. But my hackles were raised last week when I read a press release that crossed my inbox. It was headlined “Mirapoint Launches Worldwide Trade-in Program to Stranded Novell GroupWise Customers.” Stranded? Did I miss an announcement? Had the incessant chant of some investors that Novell divest itself of GroupWise led the company to simply drop the application?
Well, no. Novell is still selling GroupWise and organizations continue to buy new and upgrade licenses for it. So what was that “stranded” remark about?
The press release went on to say that Mirapoint: “gives Novell customers a viable alternative to an ‘obsolete’ platform.” “Obsolete”? Did I miss another memo?
To back up the claim, Mirapoint goes on to say:
“Novell’s recent management shake-up and changes in direction have been noted by industry analysts, including Rob Enderle of the Enderle Group. Rob reports Novell’s difficulty in making the transition from its ‘obsolete’ Netware and GroupWise software offerings to a more open source enterprise focus.”
Well, yeah, we’ve “noted” the changes in the executive offices, and we’ve commented on the slow uptake of the company’s Linux and open source offerings, but “obsolete”? Are all of you still running NetWare and all of you who are running GroupWise (including those running it on a Windows or Linux platform) aware that your systems are obsolete? You might be tempted to say, “says who?” And I’ll tell you who.
Mirapoint quotes The Enderle Group’s Rob Enderle – but who is Enderle? Well, the last time I saw him, he was delivering a keynote address at a trade show. That sounds good, until I tell you that the trade show was SCO Forum, the annual meeting of the folks using SCO software. Enderle’s talk was entitled “Free Software and the Idiots who Buy It.” It was a diatribe that even Darl MacBride, SCO’s embattled CEO, told me he found embarrassing. SCO, of course, is still embroiled in a lawsuit with Novell over the copyright to Unix code, among other things. If you Google “Enderle Novell” (without the quotes) you’ll find lots of remarks Enderle has made, remarks that make me look like a groveling sycophant.
So what’s my point?
People are going to continue to tell you (and, especially, your organization’s executives) that Novell, NetWare, GroupWise, ZENworks and the whole panoply of traditional products from the company are “obsolete” leaving you and your enterprise “stranded” and in search of replacements from somewhere other than Novell. It might be true, but that’s far from proven so take it all with a grain of salt. After all, we’re all part of the Novell “family,” aren’t we?
