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Our GroupWiseR reporter Sander van Vugt recently had an Exclusive Interview with Václav Šamša, the CEO fo TDP, often called "Mr. GroupWise for the Czech & Slovak Republic". Here are some quotes from this interview:
- "I can offer a running GroupWise system for a price that is cheaper than cleaning the floor "
- "When people start to think about the right solution to fulfill they goals, they will come to stable and reliable technology like GroupWise. The problem is that they are not thinking ..."
- "We believe that GroupWise needs support from a community."
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Q: What are you doing in your professional live?
A: In fact, I have two professional lives: the first part of it is my data recovery company. This is an important part of my professional live, since it brings me knowledge that serves on a daily basis. Then I also have a company called TDP. In this company, we do three different things: consultancy, software development and network administration. TDP company is focused a lot on Novell technologies. Of both companies I am owner for 66 percent. TDP is short for "Factory for Perfect Programs", we produce perfect programs. Don't take this too serious, but more like a joke. We know it is hard to write a perfect program, but at least we try to make it as good as possible. We do development of some utilities for GroupWise as well.
Q: What's your role in these companies? Are you purely a manager or are you involved with hands-on as well?
A: I'm into management and also administration and consultancy. In earlier days I was a programmer, but I don't do that anymore. I work 6 days a week, 11 hours a day; 6 hours in TDP and 5 in data recovery. Balance between management and hands on is 50/50.
Q: How would you define GroupWiseR?
A: This is a really complex question! Our company TDP is not a sales company, but administration primarily. We are trying to keep our customers satisfied. We can't do this with unstable technology. That's why we choose to use WordPerfect Office a long time ago. That's where GroupWise is coming from and GroupWise still is very stable software. We believe that GroupWise needs support from a community. It is helpful to work with others because that helps you exchange experience. I was invited by Herbert and Erno to help founding the GroupWiseR community in the Czech and Slovak Republics. Since then, I'm involved as a speaker on all GroupWiseR events. Working as a member of GroupWiseR is very similar to my life philosophy: working together is advantageous for everyone, even if it means working with the competition. For me, GroupWise is a platform to get something and to give something.
Q: What direction do you see GroupWiseR going in the future?
A: GroupWiseR can't be strictly related to GroupWise itself. The technology itself is not the future, the way we are using it also together with partners is important. GroupWise solutions are important; GroupWise is the glue, bringing other things together. It is not about a certain OS, it is about giving a solution. Currently I'm happy with the way it is working, GroupWiseR is open enough.
Q: How do you feel about the shift that GroupWise has made from NetWare to Linux?
A: From my point of view GroupWise was just ported to another OS, I don't consider it to be a shift. GroupWise now runs on Windows, NetWare and Linux. From technology point of view, this is a big change. Writing programs for Windows or NetWare is very similar, but for Linux it is very different. This transition involved a lot of work. For GroupWise, Linux is only a platform. Nothing from the Linux environment was added to GroupWise so far. Maybe in the future they will develop it for other platforms as well.
Q: Is there any future for GroupWise on NetWare?
A: Novell decided to cut of NetWare, that's clear. 6.5.x is the last version of NetWare ever. NetWare like Windows is strongly related to Intel processors. This is old fashioned: there isn't even a future for PC's as we know them right now. I think there is not even a future for Windows the way we know it on the long term. Currently the first goal of the Open Enterprise Server developers, is to be as good as NetWare 6.5. This means that NetWare 6.5 is going to be here a couple of years since it is a stable environment. So is there a future for GroupWise on NetWare? Yes, but not with this version of GroupWise and this version of NetWare. In a couple of years you will switch to new versions of GroupWise and operating system. In fact, GroupWise can live without NetWare and that is good news.
Q: Why should people continue working with GroupWise in the future?
A: For a software company, there are two alternatives that decide how to work with collaboration software and how to sell it to your customers. One method is not to care about the number of hours/mandays you have to spend to keep the system running. Many software and consultancy companies believe they should sell hours. There is a price per hour and it doesn't matter how many hours they spend in keeping Exchange running. This is not the right way.
Another option is to offer a fixed price to keep the system running. This is much better, the customer knows exactly what he is up to. This pushes you to reliable software and GroupWise is exactly this. GroupWise helps me to offer a low price to the customer. Airbus for example runs 40,000 mailboxes with 1,5 administrator. I can offer a running GroupWise system for a price that is cheaper than cleaning the floor. I use one hour a month to keep GroupWise running and I can keep systems running everywhere.
Q: Is there any major competition coming from the Open Source world?
A: No, no, no and no. Linux just seems good because Windows is bad enough. If however you compare it to NetWare, NetWare is so much better. It is very well integrated and easy to manage. I've done some work for Ahold in the Tsjech republic; they asked to compare NetWare with Linux and see if from the Open Source world anything is available that offers services like NetWare. Open Source software states very often that it is nearly working, "please be patient, we are almost there". That doesn't work in a big company like Ahold. Linux is OK, but I can't switch to Linux at this moment. The simple answer is "not yet".
Q: What about the future?
A: Novell is porting current technologies to Linux. It is a lot of work. NetWare today is about the services, eDirectory, iPrint, NSS and so on. It is the same, but it is a lot of work to port all of it. When they are finished doing that, we will have the same stable services we were used to work with, but then running on Linux.
Q: Do you have some thought to finish with?
A: When people start to think about the right solution to fulfill they goals, they will come to stable and reliable technology like GroupWise. The problem is that they are not thinking about it now, they just want to buy some software. If they will define their goals, they will be able to choose the right technology. Sometimes it will not be GroupWise, because it will not be the best for anyone, but in many cases, it is the best solution.
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