Here we have been looking at how open source is impacting the enterprise, also recently we discussed how Novell is moving forward in the open source space. First output of these two significant trends/events is HULA.

Hula, an open source group ware product targeting the SMBs.

Hula provides:

• Email, with the option to share folders
• Web, POP3, and IMAP mail access
• Calendaring with shared calendars
• Browser-based administration
• The ability to support 200,000 registered users per server with up to 50,000 simultaneous connections

Linux adoption by small and medium-sized businesses is being held back by the lack of an open source groupware server that's easy to install and configure. SMBs will see little cost advantage from using Linux after adding in the cost an enterprise groupware product. But this problem may soon be a thing of the past, with the recent launch of the Hula project. Hula is an ambitious, open source project jump-started with more than 200,000 lines of code donated from Novell's NetMail product.

Although Hula is not yet production-ready, its NetMail foundation code provides Hula with a tremendous amount of functionality right now. I recently put Hula to the test to evaluate its prospects for small businesses in need of groupware.

"Hula is starting from a strong position," Nat Friedman, vice president of collaboration and desktop engineering for Novell, said in a statement.

Source: IT Manager Journal, eWeek



Prashanth Rai