Know what else I hate about Groupwise?

[superboyac]

They allow formatting of email subjects.  So freaking annoying.  You can bold, italicize, or otherwise apply any other rtf formatting to the subject line.  Totally ruins your inbox list because you know people are going to abuse it.  Groupwise email is the worst thing in the world.  I have some theories about the Groupwise email development team.  They are one of the following:

• It was a bunch of geezers who knew nothing about email, and they initially created the system.  They may or may not still be there, but no one's tried to revamp it.
• They're a bunch of mac guys designing a PC application.  Nothing worse than mac people infusing the pc world with their notions.
• The developers are primarily webmail users.  They probably use hotmail as their main account.
• The person in charge is actually the nephew of the Novell owner.

I hate Groupwise so much.  I just do.  It has made me fond of Outlook, which, for me, is mind-boggling.  Subject line formatting?!  What's the deal with that?  Is their any other email program that does that??

[katykaty]

Another victim of Groupwise 

But at least you can irritate the fanboys at Novell by not capitalising the w 

[Daleus]

Right, so, what alternatives would you offer?

The shop at which I work is moving to Groupwise as we speak.  So I have an interest in what alternatives are out there.

Some of the things we are looking forward to are shared calendars, group file sharing, and no additional financial expenditure to get there (we are already licensed for Novell networking software and our license includes the use of GW).

BTW, I agree totally that formatted email is a function of Satan's left hand, but it's not like Groupwise invented it.  In fact, I would like to bludgeon anyone who sends HTML email, also a function of Satan's left hand, and you can do that with pretty much any email client these days.

Another thing I'd like to launch into the Sun, never to *ever* be seen again, is the row of dumb ass smilies available to me in this message editor.  Let's also add the huge fricking signature pictures people insist on adding to their one line emails.

There is so much about email that should be beat to death with a pointed stick, and frankly it's hard to criticize *just* Groupwise for practises that are abominable in *every* email vehicle.

[superboyac]

No, Daleus, I think you might have misunderstood me.  It's not the formatting in the email that bothers me (although I would side with you on that), it's the formatting of the headers (subject line).  Most email programs do not allow you to bold or color the subject line.  In most email programs a bold subject line usually means unread mail or something, so the ability to format it is bad.

Going back to your comments above, true, Groupwise didn't invent the bad things about email and a lot of programs do this kind of annoying stuff.  However, the entire Groupwise suite is pretty lame.  Outlook is so much better (and Outlook is on the bottom of my list for preferred software).  I understand if you're company has budgetary restrictions that make Groupwise the rational choice in email.  But I still hate it.  If I were in charge of IT, I'd get rid of Novell completely (even if it is a good networking solution despite Groupwise).  There are other ways to run a network that are just as good and won't tie you down to a crappy email/calendar system.