GroupWise & Friends  is the German speaking Groupwise user group with branches in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. This very active user group organizes many GroupWise events throughout the year. Their new website is based on Mambo, the Open Source project that is also being used by other GUG's.  The GroupWise & Friends website contains very useful information about products and activities, check it out!
You can contact Ulrich Neumann, the President of GroupWise & Friends in Germany, via e-mail at ulrich.neumann@groupwise.de
W: www.groupwise.de E: info@groupwise.de

A little bit of history and background information about GroupWise & Friends 

On Nov. 18th 2004 four friends named Uli, Herbi, Mitch and Marco sat together in a nice bar in Frankfurt with drinks and delicious cigars after pondering on the GroupWise market in the afternoon. They were quite happy, as a new idea was born and had been discussed in considerable length: It was the idea of founding an user group for GroupWise users in the German speaking countries.
 
As all 4 friends have jobs focusing on GroupWise, the need to combine interests of vendors, resellers, CEOs, admins and last but not least the mother-product manufacturer (currently Novell ;-) was more than obvious.

In uncountable discussions before with admins and decision makers, the conclusion has constantly been the same: There is a lack of activity by Novell for a precious product that is known to be the collaboration habitat for thousands of employees each day. There is no forum for admins to get in touch with each other. There is no one, who listens to user and admin problems and has the power to present a wishlist of enhancements and bug fixes to the manufacturer in Provo. There is no organized platform for Add-On vendors to address their market properly and outline functionality of the huge variety of solutions available. This list of minor and major grievances around GroupWise could have been continued......for a long time!
 
But the near future should change a lot towards a far better situation for all parties involved! What happened after the committee of 4 enthusiasts committed to start their activities.....
 
First contacts with possible sponsors and Novell had been surprisingly fruitfull! First members signed in upon receipt of the first marketing emails sent out, to promote the big kick off events, that were planned for May 2005 in Bad Homburg and Vienna. A partner concept had been developed overnight as there was no time too lose for getting the kick-off event set up as soon and as professional as possible.
 
Thanks to the excellent relation of GroupWise & Friends president Uli Neumann to Novell's Headquarter in Provo, USA, we had been very happy to hear, that Nat Friedman announced his participation for the German user group kick-off event. In his role as CTO for the collaboration product range at Novell he was the best imaginable speaker for the keynote in Bad Homburg.
 
The young force GroupWise & Friends soon began to appoint further sponsors, communicated with Novell about a common marketing strategy and negotiated with Erno de Corte, Mr GroupWise of the Netherlands and founder of the GroupWiseR initiative, which links all European GUG's into one big boat, steered by the community and driven by the need to deal with everything that enhances the sexy integrated collaboration environment, called GroupWise. Accordingly GroupWise & Friends became member of GroupWiseR and the kick-off events in Vienna and Bad Homburg were now part of the 1st GroupWiseR EMEA Tour, that visited all important countries in Europe in spring and early summer of 2004.
 
After all work had been done, everyone who had the chance to participate the events in Bad Homburg and Vienna was quite happy, as unforgettable hours have enriched the GroupWise life of the attendees. Over 350 members, partners and guests had been present in both cities some of them undertook traveling all over the country to be part of party that so many IT-managers and admins have been yearning after for too long. At this crucial point everyone and especially Novell and the GroupWise & Friends board members knew, that from now on things will be different.
 
GroupWise finally got the attention, the product deserved years ago!
 
Today GroupWise & Friends is the fast growing user group for the German Speaking markets in Germany, Austria and partly Switzerland. Within the first year after the group has been formed more than 200 members have followed invitations from the board members, Novell and associated sponsors, operating in the GroupWise market space.
 
The Novell Tour 2005 presented a collaboration track to the attendees for the very first time. The "GroupWise 7 Update" presentation received outstanding good feedback from the audience. It was voted best track on a Novell Tour ever since. Needless to mention that we do thank our GroupWise & Friends speakers Uli Neumann, Diethmar Rimser, Marc Conradty and Uwe Carsten Krause for their award winning performance alongside with Novell's Andreas Riediger.
 
First GroupWise 7 workshops had been held in Frankfurt. Both events were fully booked within 2-3 days after being announced to the community and interested folks outside the community. The new website went online in October 2005 which included the promised forum for the members, an event calendar, a solution area and many helpful things on top.
 
Today there is still a lot of homework to do, but the contribution and support from inside and outside the community has been very helpful and promising to continue on our roadmap to become the biggest GroupWise user Group within EMEA in the near future.
 
It's important to note that GroupWise & Friends is financially independent. The cash flow is save, as long as the community continues growing at the given speed. More and more benefits will be added to the Website and the portfolio of membership goodies, such as lower fees for attending important events, lower subscription rates for the GroupWise Magazine, members-only accessible forum on the website www.groupwise.de will be continuously expanded. Not to forget that all members are online with an email address that speaks for itself: name@groupwise.de and have access to the community’s iFolder Server, providing 250 MB of secure data space for everyone!
 
If you are not already part of it:
Sign-Up today!
Become part of the GroupWise & Friends family and the GroupWiseR network of experts!