OpenText GroupWise Reviews

I am an IT consultant with several enterprise email options and choose to use OpenText GroupWise. It has email, calendar, sticky notes, notes and even file transfer. I not only use it in my own organization but use it for the vast majority of my client's companies.

OpenText GroupWise has been very beneficial, so it's the preferred solution in my organization, and it probably always will be. My organization supports many clients on a variety of email systems. Over the years many have moved away from Exchange On-Premises  solution to OpenText GroupWise. The GroupWise Server can be run on either Linux Server or Windows Server.

I like the ease of login best in GroupWise. With the desktop client you can login to GroupWise independently of the PC login and it has Web Client that can be used if your prefer not to install the client or are using a PC that does not have the GroupWise Client installed. I also like its user proxy capabilities. I also like the level of security that it provides. Additionally, it comes with GroupWise Messenger for secure instant messaging to desktop or mobile devices. It integrates well with the email on your mobile devices and smart phones via GroupWise Mobile Services.  

About the only thing I don't like about GroupWise is the lack of a modern Linux client. Micro Focus stopped their development of the Linux Client a long time because there wasn't enough demand for it. Most other solutions do not have a Linux client. I would really like to see OpenText add a modern GroupWise Linux Client back. But until they do there is the Web Client can used in any modern browser.

I've been using OpenText GroupWise for approximately 30 years, since its initial Novell release in 1994. 

OpenText GroupWise is a ten, stability-wise. My organization didn't have any problems with the stability of the solution.

The scalability of Micro Focus GroupWise is a ten. It can scale to any level. It can grow to any number or servers, post offices, message transfer agents, Web Client servers and users mailboxes as needed. The licensing is based on user mailboxes so you can choose to have the number server, post offices, etc that works best for your needs.

I contacted the OpenText GroupWise technical support team and found that the team was easy to get a hold of and quick to respond. I have no problems with the support.

Positive

We support the different major email system available on the market today and tried Microsoft Exchange for ourselves. It did not compare well against GroupWise and had a much higher cost of ownership. We only use Microsoft Exchange for our customers who insist on it and are not open to or in a good position to migrate to GroupWise. In our organization, we prefer OpenText GroupWise.

If I were to rate the initial setup for Micro Focus GroupWise, it would be an nine out of ten. It's like any email system that takes proper planning.

For a smaller company, deploying Micro Focus GroupWise takes about two days.

We deploy OpenText GroupWise in-house because we are the third party that people hire to deploy the solution.

We don't official track ROI. But it is obviously great compared to the competitors.

Micro Focus GroupWise on-premises is the more affordable solution versus Microsoft Exchange on-premises. License pricing is 20:1, so there's no comparison. OpenText GroupWise is much more affordable. Though, for my clients, it's not always about the cost but the stability and security of the solution and GroupWise also shines in both these areas.

We previously used Microsoft Exchange.

I'm using and supporting both OpenText GroupWise internally and Microsoft Exchange Online and on premises for several clients. So I am very familiar with the solutions.

I'm using the latest OpenText GroupWise version, 25.4.

I advise anyone looking into using the solution to plan accordingly, so you can add all the pieces you need.

My rating for OpenText GroupWise is ten out of ten.

My organization is an authorized OpenText GroupWise reseller as well as a Microsoft Reseller so we work with both systems.

Our email environment is complicated and we use GroupWise as a data sync server. We have around 700 users and approximately 10 terabytes of emails with four servers. We are customers of GroupWise, supporting our clients who need IT assistance. I'm the head of NCIS.

The solution is very flexible and has great storage capacity. If you have, for example, two terabytes of email data in a GroupWise system, it would be equivalent to five or six terabytes in another tool that would likely also require more resources. It's a huge advantage. This is a simple tool and we find it to be more secure than Exchange. 

The web client could be improved. The WebAccess feature is similar to what you would find in an Exchange environment but it's not as good as you'd get with the full client in the caching mode. It would be preferable if the WebAccess were a little more like the full client. That would make things easier. Unfortunately, there are fewer manufacturers that currently support Micro Focus and GroupWise these days.

I've been using this solution for 17 years. 

The solution is definitely scalable up to many thousands of users. 

Customer support did what they could but we had some issues because it required coordination between GroupWise and SUSE Linux or the Micro Focus storage support. It became a ping pong between these two parts of the same company and was unpleasant.

We had a look at Lotus Notes, but it was terrible. And Microsoft was not a choice we could make because our existing license included GroupWise so we could save a lot of money by only having to purchase the server. Netscape was the previous solution we used but it wasn't able to do all the things we needed.

The initial setup is straightforward, requiring a simple rollout of the software. We installed it on all the workstations and then set up the servers. We then did a drop-down of all the emails and that was it. We carried out the main work ourselves but also used a consultant. 

This is a more expensive solution than Microsoft because Microsoft has a few other tools and products in one license. There's probably not a lot of difference at the end of the day because a Microsoft environment requires more servers and more storage, which you don't need in a GroupWise environment. I believe the maintenance of one GroupWise license costs around 30 Euro per year. Aside from the hardware, there are no additional costs. 

We know a lot of organizations that used GroupWise for a long time and then moved to Microsoft Exchange Server or to Office 365. They have a lot more work to do in their new Microsoft environment. I think the security is still much better in GroupWise than in a Microsoft environment.

It's important to take a look at the hardware you are using.

I rate this solution eight out of 10. 

It has been our main email package for years.

The cost-effectiveness of the solution is most valuable.

Their support can be improved. It is not as good as it used to be.

I've used it since the late '80s or early '90s. So, it has been more than 30 years. I used to work for the company that developed it. So, I love GroupWise.

It is very stable.

It is very scalable. About 200 people are using the solution for mailboxes and other things. For administration and things like that, there are two people.

In terms of our plans to increase its usage, it is going away due to being acquired. We will be moving to a Microsoft solution. It is probably SCCM for endpoint management.

Their support is not as good as it used to be. I would rate them a four out of five.

I haven't previously used a different solution. 

It was already in place here, but I did do an upgrade and moved it off to a different OS. It was very straightforward, but I've been supporting it for years.

It was done in-house.

It provides a very high return on investment. I don't have the exact numbers, but it was very cost-effective. Compared to subscription-based or cloud-based email and things like that, it was very cost-effective.

It was a part of the suite, so it was very cost-effective. There were no costs beyond the licensing fee.

I would advise others who are looking into implementing this product to go for it. The only downside of it is that there is no Outlook. If people are comfortable with not having Outlook, it is a very good and solid solution.

I would rate it a 10 out of 10.