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Supporting the GroupWise 5 Desktop are information management services that offer users access to all kinds of corporate data and information. The GroupWise 5 information management services allow users to view, query, store, and move corporate data while maintaining its integrity, version control, and security. Even though users are often faced with information overload, it often seems impossible to find the right information on demand — regardless of where it might be stored. In fact, estimates show that the average executive spends approximately 1 month per year waiting for information. Therefore, information management services that speed the process of finding crucial information can save time and money.

GroupWise 5 accelerates decision-making by helping users access vital information, no matter where or how it is stored. Powerful document management features based on SoftSolutions technology can search and retrieve information from native application files (e.g., word processor documents, presentations, and spreadsheets), and integrated InForms technology allows GroupWise 5 users to view and extract information stored in company databases using a familiar forms metaphor. Users can view, collect, circulate, and route information from their GroupWise 5 Desktop.

Effective communications are strategic to collaborative computing. With this in mind, Novell is delivering a robust communications infrastructure that is modular and based on industry standards. GroupWise 5 offers a wide range of background communications services, from one-to-one communications to one-to-many, to many-to-many. These services:

  Offer complete support for remote and mobile users
  Intelligently support the many types of data workgroups need to share
  Connect to external and legacy systems
  Can be scaled to meet the needs of workgroups, departments, or entire enterprises
  Feature a true client/server architecture

Like the other services provided by GroupWise 5, the communications management services support multiple data types, including not only E-mail, documents, and forms, but also voice mail, images, and faxes. And GroupWise 5 optimizes the movement of information over a network. For example, these services give users the option of downloading files or simply moving references or pointers around the network, avoiding the consumption of network bandwidth by large files (e.g., sound or video files).

GroupWise 5 communications services enable today’s road warriors to take their offices with them. GroupWise 5 provides mobile users access to their in-boxes and out-boxes by way of remote client software or a standard touch-tone telephone, so they can continue to participate in the workflow of a business process when they are away from the office. In addition, remote client software lets users access data stores and participate in conferences — it even lets them take snapshots of data or forms when on the road and synchronize it when they return to the office. A user is never out of the loop, and a business process does not have to come to a screeching halt.

SUMMARY

GroupWise 5 represents the culmination of the integration of Novell’s MHS product line and its GroupWise product line. At the heart of communications services is the GroupWise 5 message transfer agent. It supports many desktop clients, including MHS SMF70/71 clients, GroupWise 4.1 clients, MAPI 1.0 clients, CMC 2.0 clients, and GroupWise 5 clients. Current MHS and GroupWise users can easily migrate to GroupWise 5 by replacing their MTA with the GroupWise 5 MTA, moving individual mailboxes to GroupWise 5 one at a time or upgrading entire post offices.

GroupWise 5 communications management services also support popular connectivity standards (e.g., MHS, X.400, and SMTP/MIME). GroupWise 5 provides a host of gateways to a wide variety of existing messaging systems. Users can protect their investment in legacy messaging and data systems as well as connect to the external world of private and public data networks.

The foundation of Novell’s GroupWise 5 product family resides in market-tested products that are available today, including InForms, SoftSolutions, MHS, and Collabra Share for GroupWise. Workgroups using these products are already on the path to GroupWise 5. They offer immediate, real-world benefits to organizations by leveraging the value of NetWare by implementing GroupWise and MHS — robust messaging technologies that capitalize on NetWare’s system administration and management.


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