Last October, Micro Focus acquired GWAVA—as many of you know.  In the face of such news, speculation abounded on what this would mean for both GroupWise and existing GWAVA products.  Since that announcement, both companies concentrated on finishing out their fiscal years before going through complete integration.

That integration is underway, so what can you expect to see as part of that process? Well, in the future, the GWAVA website will transition most of their information to www.microfocus.com as those products are moved over into the Micro Focus domain.  But what does this whole transition mean for you, a loyal GroupWise or GWAVA customer?

First of all—you'll see less GWAVA in the names of those products.  Don’t be alarmed though! This is standard practice for Micro Focus.  We like to integrate products into our portfolio with as little disruption to the existing customers as possible. Sometimes this means former brands end up disappearing though.  It happened to GroupWise-- moving from Novell GroupWise to Micro Focus GroupWise. So don’t be alarmed if you see the website and the name GWAVA transition here soon.  The products themselves aren’t disappearing!

Second, the integration of engineering, product management, and marketing is well underway.  This is great news for both GroupWise and users of those products (Redline, Reload, Blueprint, and Vertigo) that are tightly tied to GroupWise.  You’ll see tighter integration and common development efforts around those products to make sure they work together for an even more seamless experience.

In fact, if you're interested in Reload-- you should attend this GroupWise Disaster Recovery webinar in person, or watch the recording!  You can join the live webinar on Wednesday, June 28 @ 1pm ET-- or use the same link and watch the recording.

The security aspects of both email and web that came from GWAVA can expect continued integration with both GroupWise and other email platforms such as Exchange, IBM Notes, Gmail, and Office 365. Yes—the Secure Gateway product will continue to work with GroupWise and other email products, and will continue to deliver both messaging and web gateway security.  Because Micro Focus has a host of other enterprise security products, Secure Gateway is good fit for delivering on a wider, more robust security stance for both Micro Focus and your enterprise.

Retain (and everything related to it) will be true to its heritage and continue to focus on archiving collaborative solutions like GroupWise with possibly other areas of tighter integration there.  And of course, Retain continues to work with other email platforms—as well as supports social media archiving too. In fact, we are looking at possible areas where Retain could expand its reach, coverage, and capabilities.

Is anything exciting planned for the futures of all these products?  Well, without giving too much away, the answer is YES!  Look for more news coming before the end of the year!  I know I’m already hard at work on some projects, and I can’t wait to pull back the curtain and show you all.  So while no one likes to hear “hold on” for just a bit longer, I promise it will be worth the wait!

In the mean time, consider attending the upcoming Techconnect event happening this September in Berlin, Germany. This will be a great opportunity to get a sneak peek at what's happening with GWAVA and GroupWise-- (not to mention OES, ZENworks, and other Micro Focus products).  For those that recall-- this event has traditionally been GWAVAcon.  However, it has been re-branded and re-named.

The acquisition of GWAVA was a great step forward for the GroupWise community, if you ask me. It really showed Micro Focus’s commitment to GroupWise.  Making all the collaborative products (no matter their origins) integrate well together is a great next step and I'm sure you'll love what's coming in the next few months! Lots of fun, exciting stuff is on the horizon for both the traditional GWAVA products and GroupWise.  So stay tuned!