We are running a current pole on our Facebook page regarding the location of the 2010 African Summit.  It would be appreciated if you could take a few minutes to please respond to the poll.  The poll can be found at this link.

Now that Novell has released the Support Pack 1 for GroupWise 8, the development team of GroupWise@Home is now entering the final phase of tuning and testing. In the next few weeks the more than 100 beta testers will test the latest version of the GroupWise@Home modules as well as finalize the translation of the user interface elements. We hope to be able to set a final date for the launch of GroupWise@Home soon, as so many people have been waiting for this release.

The Open Horizons EMEA Tour and African Summit that took place from 21 to 23 May 2009 was a remarkable success.  The Open Horizons EMEA Tour and African Summit was facilitated and made a reality by our proud sponsors, and I would like to make use of this formal opportunity to thank them for their continued support.  Without them we would not be able to provide the quality events to the Novell community that they deserve.

SKyCOM Unified Communications Application Adds VoIP Capability for Improved Productivity, Increased Convenience, and Lower Communications Costs. More info here.  

Welcome to the home of the GroupWise User Group for South Africa and the Rest of Africa.  You can register on this web site if you want to become member of this user group.  The purpose of this User Group is to connect GroupWise users in South Africa and the Rest of Africa.  The GroupWise User Groups in the rest of the world has been highly successful in establishing these user group communities.  It is time that we do this formally in Africa.  This user group will also provide its members a range of benefits that will become evident when  you register to become an active member of this User Group.

NetCB Solutions (Pty) Ltd has now formally launched their training division - the Open Training Institute on 2nd April 2008.  We specifically selected the 2nd of April before anyone thinks it is an April Fools Day joke if we launched it on 1st of April, but let us get serious now.

vCard automates the exchange of personal information typically found on a traditional business card. vCard is used in applications such as Internet mail, voice mail, Web browsers, telephony applications, call centers, video conferencing, PIMs (Personal Information Managers), PDAs (Personal Data Assistants), pagers, fax, office equipment, and smart cards. vCard information goes way beyond simple text, and includes elements like pictures, company logos, live Web addresses, and so on.

vCalendar defines a transport and platform-independent format for exchanging calendaring and scheduling information in an easy, automated, and consistent manner. It captures information about event and "to-do" items that are normally used by applications such as a personal information managers (PIMs) and group schedulers. Programs that use vCalendar can exchange important data about events so that you can schedule meetings with anyone who has a vCalendar-aware program.

Novell today announced its team collaboration solution, Novell® Teaming, was recognized as a leader in the August 2009 Forrester Research, Inc. report, The Forrester Wave: Collaboration Platforms, Q3 2009. In evaluating Novell Teaming, the report states, "Teaming brings very strong capabilities for workspaces and collaborative application development, particularly in the area of workflow." Novell Teaming rounds out the company's strong suite of collaboration solutions and helps customers increase enterprise productivity.

A lot of you have been waiting for news about our replacement for GroupWise Mobile Server. We have spoken about it in various blog posts prior to this one, however, I can now talk about it in a little more detail. 

Read the blog entry by A Evans from Novell.

eWeek.com about GroupWise 7

Butler Technology Audit on GroupWise 7

Novell GroupWise is a well established and highly popular enterprise communication and collaboration system that provides organisations with e-mail, calendaring and scheduling, Instant Messaging, task management, contact management, and document management features. Desktop GroupWise clients are available for Windows, Linux, and Macintosh operating systems and a sophisticated thin client is compatible with all modern Web browsers. On the server-side, GroupWise is supported on NetWare, Linux, and Windows operating systems, or any combination thereof. GroupWise 7 signals a fresh lease of life for what is clearly a very capable product, and Novell’s commitment to support the current offering well into the next decade will provide existing users of this product with much needed confidence. GroupWise remains well supported by Independent Software Vendors, with companies such as Research In Motion (BlackBerry), extending the product’s core functionality to meet a broad range of business requirements. Organisations currently using GroupWise, but considering alternative products, should engage with Novell and its partners (or download an evaluation version) to assess the value this new release could offer.

Good news: as the beta program ended last week, Support Pack 1 for GroupWise 8 is now available for download. Many people have been waiting for the release of this support pack, to fully deploy GroupWise 8 in their organization.

We want to give you a short update information about our "GroupWise@home" project. The project team just announced today, that there is a first Alpha version of the product available. This will only be tested from some of our worldwide GroupWise specialists. The project team also announced, that they are planning to have a developers meeting end of March in Rotterdam about GroupWise@home. So by the end of March we could probably give you some more information.

GroupWise@Home offers many benefits compared to the competition. Unlike other solutions GroupWise@Home uses the same strong GroupWise client that you use in the office, so you will get all the rich features of the GroupWise client for use at home. And the good news is: it is free!