Novell mail fail

Summary: With the Los Angeles decision made final, Novell resorts to cheap shots and excuses to defend its proprietary software

SEVERAL DAYS ago it was made official that Los Angeles will dump Novell's GroupWise. There is a lot of press coverage about it, and by no means good press for Novell, which got dumped for performing poorly.

Here is the relevant part:

The migration from the city's Novell GroupWise e-mail servers will be handled by contractor Computer Sciences Corp. Other applications such as calendaring, document sharing and chat will be handled by Google Apps too.

Novell's GroupWise is being labeled "slow and crash-prone" in the New Zealand Herald, so Novell responds.

The move will also end the city's seven-year contract to use Novell's GroupWise email and record-keeping software, which city workers have complained is slow and crash-prone.

A Novell senior vice president said during the council hearing that many city departments were not using the most recent version of GroupWise and reiterated an offer to provide additional services for free.

Microsoft too loves saying that the "most recent version" of Windows will fix everything. It is also common for Microsoft to speak about future (even if imaginary) versions of Windows.

More damage control comes from Novell's PR team (the director Ian Bruce even). It's a poor response that says for example:

In addition, independent financial data showed that the new system will actually cost more, not less.

No link, no proof, not even a name of the source. Novell also adds FUD about security. Should it maybe use the Sidekick fiasco for more effective FUD? We wrote about it in:

• Microsoft Pink is Already Declared Dead and Danger Dies with Permanent Data Loss
• Microsoft Sued for Data Loss
• Lawsuits Against Microsoft Turn to Class Action Lawsuit While Microsoft Mobiles Become Dying Breed
• Microsoft Recovers Sidekick Data? Not So Fast!

In short, Novell has lost a major client to the so-called "cloud" and it has only poor excuses to defend itself with. ⬆