Novell Moves GroupWise For Linux Into Public Beta

Novell on Wednesday slipped in another piece to its Linux portfolio by pushing GroupWise, its messaging platform, into public beta.

Expected to ship in final form in the first half of 2004, GroupWise 6.5 for Linux boasts enterprise-level e-mail, calendaring, instant messaging, document management, and workflow functions. Previously, GroupWise ran only on Windows and NetWare.

On Linux, GroupWise will also integrate with Ximian's Evolution e-mail and workgroup application -- Ximian was purchased by Novell in August, 2003 -- and includes a plug-in to connect users of the GAIM instant messaging client with servers running GroupWise Messenger.

GroupWise 6.5 for Linux operates on Red Hat Enterprise and SuSE Linux Enterprise Server distributions.

Although pricing information of the final edition was not disclosed, the beta can be downloaded from the Novell Web site.