Groupwise vs. Exchange Which is more stable

[bytheway]

I am ready to have Groupwise removed from all my 30 sites in favor of Exchange. Before I do this what are the pros and cons of ripping out groupwise? It has been unstable, unreliable, Novell support is terrible, the IT staff is also partially to blame for making promises they can't fulfill. Any comments?

 

[rjs]

I support both. If properly configured and maintained, either works well and both are stable. Exchange is much better when it comes to its contacts vs. GroupWise address book. If you are a Novell shop, then Exchange implementation will not be pretty.

I would never do Exchange without virus protection.

 

[shunter917]

It sounds as though your IT staff is more at fault than GW or Novell. I've been running GW since before it was GW (when it was still part of WordPerfect 5.1 Office package) and it has NEVER been unstable or difficult to manage.

Also, never been hit with an email virus, either.

 

[zowie2]

We've always been with GW and currently run GW 5.5 sp3 w/o Enhancement Pack (600+ users, 9 sites). When we first started there were gripes about how it doesn't work as well as Outlook. That all went away with training and all the Viruses that affect Exchange. We've not had to worry about viruses with GW.

Exchange is inherently harder to maintain and manage than Groupwise, especially if you are not implementing Active Directory. Remember, GW integrates with NDS for easy management. Also, according to Gartner Group, Exchange is expensive to manage per user per year.

On the other hand, you might find more support and 3rd party integrators, such as PDA's, that give Exchange and advantage.

What yo ureally need to do is have someone perform an analysis with costs and ROI to determine if it is a good decision. You might also put your IT staff on notice...