Novell presents unified messaging solution to the MHS development community; MHS and Global MHS are key to the foundation for Novell's Collaborative Message Server.

BOSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 30, 1994--Novell Inc. (NASDAQ:NOVL) Wednesday presented to the MHS Alliance a messaging migration strategy that will help MHS, Global MHS (GMHS) and GroupWise developers and users plan for Novell's future Collaborative Messaging Server (NCMS).

With the introduction of NetWare 4.1, available in December 1994, Novell is establishing messaging as a core component of the network operating system.

The messaging component of NetWare 4.1 focuses on lowering the total cost of ownership for networks and messaging through easier administration and configuration, NetWare Directory Service (NDS) integration and support for Standard Message Format (SMF) 71. As part of the presentation, Novell executives recommended that ISVs develop their applications to support SMF 71 in the NetWare 4.1 environment.

"Our goal will be to expand the current messaging services in NetWare 4.1 to support the rich collaborative services customers will need in the future," said Ken Duncan, vice president and general manager of the Novell GroupWare Division. "The inclusion of the MHS transport with NetWare Directory Service (NDS) in NetWare 4.1 is proof of our commitment to MHS users and developers."

"Novell will continue to support SMF 71 in the NetWare 4.1 environment and provide the tools to help the messaging ISV community and users take advantage of the other collaborative services provided through Novell's Collaborative Computing Environment (CCE)," said Duncan.

Migration Strategy

In September 1994, Novell published a messaging convergence strategy document outlining three phases of migration for Novell's messaging services and applications. The first phase, the GroupWise 4.1 MHS NLM (NetWare Loadable Module), first available in August 1994, featured transparent directory synchronization and co-existence capabilities between GMHS/MHS and GroupWise.

The second phase, due by the end of 1994, will provide enhanced services to enable GMHS and GroupWise to better integrate with NetWare 4.1 administration and NDS. During this phase, the messaging and directory services embedded in NetWare 4.1 become the central platform for messaging applications development and future CCE development.

The final phase, NCMS, due by end of year 1995, will provide enhanced message transport and message store facilities that will be tightly integrated with NetWare, and will support the additional CCE service and client components.

"There are literally millions of MHS-dependent users and developers in organizations across the globe," said John Rizzi, vice president of sales at On Technology. "The MHS Alliance members are pleased to see Novell's commitment to MHS and the overall messaging community. It is also reassuring to know that Novell has plans for not only supporting MHS, but evolving it to an environment that is much more than a messaging infrastructure opening new market opportunities for the Alliance members."

In the past, Novell's messaging focus has been to provide the best messaging infrastructure in the industry, and has depended on ISVs to provide the front end to that infrastructure. MHS and GMHS rapidly became standards in messaging because ISVs were empowered to take advantage of and leverage the sophisticated routing capabilities of MHS and the networking services of NetWare.

With the acquisition of WordPerfect Corp., Novell became an instant contender in the applications side of the messaging business with GroupWise 4.1. In March 1994, WordPerfect Corp. announced a plan to open its messaging engine and message store through a strategy called the Open Messaging Environment (OME).

OME would make the GroupWise functions of integrated e-mail, calendaring, scheduling and task management available to third parties through standards-based APIs. NCMS will combine the best attributes of MHS and OME to provide a foundation for collaborative computing that supports both MHS and GroupWise systems.

"Novell's focus in messaging has not changed," said Duncan. "We are strongly committed to providing an open and sophisticated messaging infrastructure that ISVs can write to and take advantage of. Novell strongly encourages messaging ISVs to evolve their applications to support SMF 71, the format of the embedded messaging services in NetWare 4.1.

"The messaging services provided in NetWare 4.1 will act as the foundation for ISVs wanting to take advantage of the advanced messaging services provided in NCMS and additional collaborative services of CCE."

CCE, Novell's framework for providing group collaboration solutions, will provide an open environment where groupware services such as a common message transfer agent (MTA), workflow engine or document store can be linked through a Service Provider Interface (SPI) to client components such as an address book, universal in-box or imaging component. Using this environment, Novell and other ISVs can create custom messaging or groupware/group-enabled solutions.

In addition to providing a technology migration path, the Novell GroupWare Division also has plans to evolve the MHS developer relations and support programs into a GroupWare/CCE developers program. This program, to be formally announced in the coming months, will help the MHS development community and other ISVs take advantage of the services provided in NetWare and Novell GroupWare.

Novell Inc.'s business is connecting people to other people and the information they need, enabling them to act on it anytime, anyplace. Novell is the world's leading network solutions provider.

The company's software products provide the distributed infrastructure, network services, advanced network access and network applications required to make networked information and pervasive computing an integral part of everyone's daily life.

CONTACT: Novell Inc.

              Brian Chapman, 801/228-5126
              Internet:  bchapman("at sign")wordperfect.com