Q: What is OpenMail?
A: OpenMail is Hewlett-Packard’s UNIX enterprise
messaging and collaboration solution, based on Internet and ITU
standards. It has an installed base of 10 million seats. OpenMail
is designed for large enterprises (and the heterogeneous
environments often found in those large enterprises). It’s used by
many world-class businesses as the core of their communications
infrastructure. More information can be found at
www.hp.com/go/openmail.
Q: Why is HP exhibiting OpenMail at Linux
World?
A: We are demonstrating a Linux version (aka ‘a
Linux port’) of OpenMail 6.0 to gauge reaction and seek feedback.
We are close to announcing a new Linux messaging/collaboration
product, based on OpenMail technology.
Q: Is this a product announcement?
A: Not yet. However, we are aggressively moving
forward in defining the roadmap for HP’s Linux offering in the
messaging and collaboration space. We feel it’s important to allow
the Linux community’s feedback to guide us.
Q: What do you think the Linux community will
tell you?
A: We think that many Linux server customers need
the type of proven, enterprise capabilities that today’s OpenMail
customers enjoy. A Linux messaging/collaboration product based on
the OpenMail 6.0 technology would give the Linux community a
compelling alternative to ‘generic’ Internet e-mail servers. In
addition to robust Internet standards support, a Linux edition of
OpenMail would include OpenMail 6.0’s new Web client, plus support
for Microsoft Outlook, and other ‘clients-of-choice’.
Q: ‘Clients-of choice’? What’s that?
A: We designed OpenMail to meet our customers’
needs for many different desktop clients. OpenMail’s
‘clients-of-choice’ technology provides high-fidelity communication
between diverse desktops. It means that customers do not require
complex gateways. OpenMail customers can ‘plug and play’ with
popular desktop software products such as Outlook and Lotus
cc:Mail. OpenMail also tightly integrates with desktop software
that supports Internet messaging standards, such as ESMTP, IMAP4,
POP3, LDAP, MDNs and DSNs.
Q: But any ‘generic’ IMAP server can talk to
Outlook, can’t it?
A: Yes and no: there are several flavors of
Outlook. The full, ‘corporate’ Outlook clients use a set of APIs
known as MAPI. Only OpenMail can connect corporate Outlook to a
UNIX server with this level of functionality, thanks to OpenMail’s
unique Outlook integration technology. Developed in collaboration
with Microsoft, it enables rich features such as wide-area shared
calendars, public folders and address book integration. Also,
OpenMail’s Outlook integration inherits OpenMail’s key benefits:
robustness, scalability, flexibility and low cost of ownership.
Q: Is there any other way for end-users to
connect to an OpenMail server?
A: OpenMail’s new, functionally rich Web-based
technology provides its customers with exciting new possibilities
for flexible operation. This was recently demonstrated at the
France ’98 World Cup soccer tournament, where one single small
OpenMail server was successfully used to provide communications for
thousands of journalists and officials across the France ’98
wide-area intranet.
Q: Is your target market ISPs or
enterprises?
A: Both. OpenMail’s classic market has been
enterprise, or ‘business’ messaging and collaboration. However,
service providers that are interested in providing higher
functionality services than just ‘generic’ Internet e-mail find
OpenMail very attractive. Linux has always been an important
platform for ISPs. HP’s OpenMail organization has the charter to
add value to HP’s ‘Smart Internet Messaging’ ISP solutions.
Q: So OpenMail is very scalable then?
A: Yes, the new version of OpenMail (6.0) is
designed to support thousands and thousands of simultaneous
business users on a large UNIX server. Note: different types of
users do different amounts of work, imposing different loads on
servers. Of course, sweeping scalability statements usually fail to
take account of users’ vastly different networks and usage
patterns.
Q: On which operating systems is OpenMail
available today?
A: OpenMail is targeted at the major business UNIX
operating systems: HP-UX, AIX and Solaris.
Q: How is your existing OpenMail business?
A: Very healthy, thanks! We beat our sales
estimates in the last six months by a large margin, and we’re just
celebrating ten million licenses sold.
Q: So will you be opening up the source code to
OpenMail?
A: No.
Q: You say you’re ‘looking for feedback’ about
a possible Linux OpenMail product, so how can people get their
feedback to you?
A: We have knowledgeable technical OpenMail staff
here at Linux World for people to talk to, or they can send e-mail
to linux@pwd.hp.com.
Q: Who’s the OpenMail editorial contact?
A: Richi Jennings at HP: richi@hp.com or +44 1344
365870