Years ago Novell established the precedent that add-ons and additional functionality with Novell GroupWise would be free. The clamor for out-of-the-box solutions that come free has been heard at every BrainShare for a decade.
The problem with free is that it hurts the enduser, the very person who screams for free products or product integration is the one who ends up hurt in the end.
Free is bad.
Today Nokia announced the discontinuance of the Intellisync division. The solution that Novell had decided on for their GroupWise Mobile Server.
Nokia Announcement
You are building your business, your organization, your reputation, on the solutions that you, as an IT Manager or consultant, recommend. Do you really want to stake your reputation and relationship with your customer, your boss, or your end-users on a piece of "free" software?
Now, I don' have the room or time to argue the whole Open-Source issue about free vs proprietary. That is not what this conversation is about. I'm here to argue that if you want some thing of high value then you will have to pay for it.
Novell customers have demanded that they get device syncronization for "free". Well, Novell obligded and provide the opportunity to have a syncronization experience out of the box.
They got a free solution but now they are faced with a non-solution because Nokia couldn't find any way of making money with the Intellisync product.
If you want something bad enough, then pay for it. Nokia pulled the plug on Intellisync today which has placed all of Novell's GroupWise Mobile Server users in a tight spot. Their free server doesn't seem to have a future.
I've never been a fan of Novell offering everything for free even though it supposibly causes them to lose business.
An ActiveSync process will make more sense for Novell in the future.
Monday, September 29, 2008
Free is not good. GroupWise's ongoing dilemna
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1 comments:
Free is good, right up to where you go out of business or run out of money. Unless you're a trust-fund baby, somewhere behind the scenes something/someone is funding the free software, including Open Office and Firefox. And while most of the time I think that Open-Source does mean free, it doesn't have to...
Still, Novell, as an also ran (3rd place according to your blog), has to do it better, faster, and meaner than the other guys. They can't afford to be seen as lax in an area. They need to move quick on this issue, because it is big. First we lost (or are losing) PDA sync, now GMS?
I think that those of us that push for "best of breed" rather than "market leader" will pay a reasonable price for a product that works, and works well without babysitting. We pay for GroupWise don't we? We pay for BES don't we?
Sure we'll squawk a bit - we've been spoiled. My spoiled kids squawk at times too, then they get over it.
The key here is works and works well. More half measures and lax commitment will only serve to drive us away from their products, and those complimentary products that we already pay for - like GWAVA, Retain, Reload, BES, Formativ.
Novell needs to step up, and step up strong.
Then again, so does McCain - but that's another issue.
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