Do you know how to stuff a 2,25 meter tall and 125 kilo heavy ICE-bear in your luggage when traveling by plane to BrainShare? Read on, the answer is below, as there is more news from BrainShare.

First of all some fun things: last Saturday a small group of European GroupWise enthusiasts, consisting of Svetlin Petrov, Ulrich Neumann, Sander van Vugt and myself, where escorted thru the canyons of the beautiful Zion National Park by the GroupWise Product Managers Phill Karren and Bill Pray. And the hike to Angels Landing became quite a adventure, as it started snowing as soon as we were half way on the trail towards the top of the canyon. After a rather slippery climb we almost reached the top of the canyon, but as there was a thunderstorm brewing we decided to be wise and glided down the trail for our descend. After almost 4,5 hours of hiking we returned to the Zion lodge safely and enjoyed our late lunch. I can certainly recommend a visit to Zion, a wonderful place for some pre BrainShare fun!

 

Phil and Bill: thanks for guiding us, we would have been lost without you!

 

As you might know, this year we've a little booth at BrainShare, next to the NUI and opposite the Novell solutions lab. On Sunday, after our return from Zion, we started to build the booth and I think it turned out nicely. We're showing the logo's of all the associated local groups and have displayed some GroupWiseR other stuff as well, we even have a lottery for some stuff. Even on the first day the responses have been positive, people walk by and stop for a little chat. They really like the idea behind all of this: "more attention for GroupWise" and the most commonly asked question is: can we have something like this in our country (USA, Canada, Brazil, Argentina, Israel) as well. You can find some pictures at www.groupwiser.net/bs2006, drop by our booth if you are anywhere near.

 

Like every year Jack Messmann opened BrainShare with the keynote on Monday morning and this year there were some nice announcements with regards to GroupWise. First of all a nice video announcement about the upcoming availability of the GroupWise Mobile Server, powered by Intellisync. Although I might be a bit biased, I've heard others mentioning it as well: this video was certainly one of the highlights of the keynote. And of course the message itself is exciting as well: a GroupWise 7.0 customers with maintenance or upgrade protection can use the GMS for free! This way you can connect almost any PDA to GroupWise wireless. The GMS is currently still in beta, but will become available in May or June.

 

Now all of this is for GroupWise 7.0, but don't underestimate what the existing PDA sync suppliers can deliver already for GroupWise 6.5. For example, for all those that like to use BlackBerries: Novell announced that RIM will give away a free server license with 5 user licenses until October 2006. And have a look at partners like Messaging Architects, Notify, Omni and Toffa: new versions are there or will be available soon, as they all see the big growth of the demand. So after many years of preaching the PDA gospel I can now say: it's happening today, make sure to check it out!

 

Here's another interesting announcement from Jack during the keynote: the immediate availability of the "Novell Open Workgroup Suite", combining OES (Netware or Linux), ZENWorks, GroupWise, OpenOffice and NLD in one single very attractive suite for a very special price. And the good news is: unlike other suites, all components can be upgraded individually, so whenever a new version of GroupWise comes out you can start using that immediately. Very interesting indeed!

 

Of course there was much more during the keynote, like the new Suse Linux Enterprise Desktop based on version 10. And many more announcements, but this is a GroupWise newsletter, so I'll leave it at that. 

 

Now all of this is for GroupWise 7.0, but don't underestimate what the existing PDA sync suppliers can deliver already for GroupWise 6.5. For example, for all those that like to use BlackBerries: Novell announced that RIM will give away a free server license with 5 user licenses until October 2006. And have a look at partners like Messaging Architects, Notify, Omni and Toffa: new versions are there or will be available soon, as they all see the big growth of the demand. So after many years of preaching the PDA gospel I can now say: it's happening today, make sure to check it out!

 

Here's another interesting announcement from Jack during the keynote: the immediate availability of the "Novell Open Workgroup Suite", combining OES (Netware or Linux), ZENWorks, GroupWise, OpenOffice and NLD in one single very attractive suite for a very special price. And the good news is: unlike other suites, all components can be upgraded individually, so whenever a new version of GroupWise comes out you can start using that immediately. Very interesting indeed!

 

Of course there was much more during the keynote, like the new Suse Linux Enterprise Desktop based on version 10. And many more announcements, but this is a GroupWise newsletter, so I'll leave it at that.

 

 

Well, apart from managing a booth I will also have to present some sessions this week, and the first session was about e-mail retention. Full house, satisfied audience, I actually quoted Lindsey Johnstone from the City of Seattle and later noticed he was in the room. He did similar sessions in previous years and we discussed the session afterwards: very cool to get such feedback from an experienced person like him. This session will be presented again on Thursday at 1:30, so if you're at BrainShare come join us.

 

You can also check out the session schedule at www.groupwiser.net/emea-tour, as a similar session will be presented during the Tour. As you know, the Tour starts immediately after BrainShare and we've a lot of news to offer. We hope to see you there, so please sign up as soon as possible.

 

 

Last week, during the trip to BrainShare, we've finished another GroupWiseR project: a group of GroupWiseR enthusiasts have finished "the GroupWise Powerguide", a book containing a collection of tips and tricks that will help any GroupWise enthusiast to get the most out of GroupWise. This is not your regular end-user manual, but aimed at those who already have some knowledge of GroupWise and who want to bring their GroupWise expertise to the next level. More info at www.books4brains.com

 

Well, actually I did carry more than 50 kilo's of luggage and taking this huge ICE-bear along was not possible. But we did something special anyway, as I've taken along more than 60 small ICE-bears in my suitcase. Have a look how a suitcase of ICE-bears looks like. More about the ICE-bear at www.groupwice.com.

 

Thanks again for your support, hope to see you soon at BrainShare or during the GroupWiseR EMEA Tour.

 

Kindest regards,

 

Erno de Korte

 

 " GroupWiseR makes the world go round " (Quote by Gert ter Burg)