GWCheck: Can you describe yourself and what your role is in The Attachmate Group?

Jeff: As Chairman and CEO of The Attachmate Group, my main job is to make sure that all of my co-workers around the world have everything they need to deliver great products, solutions, and services to our 65,000 customers.

GWCheck: Attachmate was founded over 30 years ago. What are today its goals and what markets does it target?

Jeff: The Attachmate Group delivers innovative solutions, quality products, and exceptional service to customers and partners in a manner that supports their strategic and tactical business requirements; the purpose of which has an overarching goal of customer success and long-term customer loyalty.

The Attachmate Group product families include complementary solutions that range across IT operations management; open source; end user computing and collaboration; host connectivity and legacy modernization; security, identity and compliance management; virtualization and cloud computing; and more.

GWCheck: How does The Attachmate Group operate? Will Novell customers still have Novell products or will it rebrand in the future?

Jeff: The Attachmate Group will operate Attachmate, NetIQ, Novell and SUSE as independent business units. The Novell brand will be retained, and SUSE will become its own separate brand.

GWCheck: What benefits can Novell customers expect from The Attachmate Group and its companies?

Jeff: Customers want comprehensive solutions that address their needs to manage and secure their increasingly complex IT environments. These solutions must include existing IT investments, innovative technologies and new delivery and transaction models. They are looking to us, as a trusted advisor, to meet these needs.

Upon completion of this transaction, we will be a $1 billion+ software organization. At this scale, we will be able to bring to bear richer solutions, more talent and expertise, a larger product portfolio, and an expanded field presence to customers and partners worldwide. Because customers:

• Have needs that are increasingly global – we are now even more capable of doing business where they do business.
• Want to do business with names they trust – we will rejuvenate and strengthen the Novell and SUSE brands, which will be great additions to our Attachmate and NetIQ brands.
• Want to see long-term commitment to product roadmaps and solution offerings – we will quickly demonstrate our long term commitment to all of the product families we have acquired.

GWCheck: Does The Attachmate Group have communities of end users or professionals that work with its products? Does it have a partnernet?

Jeff: Yes, each business unit currently has and will continue to have its own partner strategy.

GWCheck: Will GroupWise events like GWAVACon, Open Horizons EMEA Summits and BrainShare see more of The Attachmate Group?

Jeff: Industry events are definitely important and as always, each individual business unit – including Novell – will determine which events are best for their businesses. We will continue to attend and invest in those that are important to our collective group of customers.

GWCheck: What else would you like to say to GroupWise users, admins, consultants and professionals?

Jeff: I would like to reiterate that the mission of The Attachmate Group and its business units – Attachmate, NetIQ, Novell and SUSE – is to understand the needs of our customers and provide great products, great service and support, and be easy to do business with. In this way we can best ensure the long-term success of our customers by enabling them to extend, manage and secure their complex IT environments.

Secondly, current product roadmaps will remain in place. The Attachmate Group does not end-of-life products and we do not force customers to move to/from any products – we are focused on meeting the needs of our customers and that is our first priority.

And finally, we are excited to join the GroupWise ranks. We are underway with the adoption of GroupWise as the collaboration solution across all of The Attachmate Group.

More news from GWCheck van be found at www.gwcheck.com - more about The Attachmate Group at www.attachmategroup.com