A: Given the recent acquisition of AppForge Crossfire by Oracle and Omni Mobile's dependency on Crossfire, Omni Mobile is no longer available for trial or for purchase by new customers. This has also delayed our plans to release a BlackBerry client. More details here.

A: Omni Mobile has a number of advantages over the "FREE" Novell GroupWise Mobile Server powered by IntelliSync. The biggest differences between Omni Mobile and the "Free" Novell GroupWise Mobile Server are:

• A dedicated server running Windows Server is not required with Omni Mobile (or two dedicated Windows servers are not required if you follow Novell's best practice of having an IntelliSync Gateway server installed in your DMZ to communicate with the GroupWise Mobile Server inside your firewall).
• Omni Mobile provides GroupWise wireless email by installing directly on your GroupWise WebAccess server running on NetWare, OES, Linux or Microsoft Windows.
• There are no infrastructure changes, no additional holes that need to be opened in your firewall, or firewall exceptions required for Omni Mobile.
• Omni Mobile provides more than just PIM synchronization - it provides a full GroupWise wireless email caching client that has the same interface on all mobile platforms.
• In addition to standard attachment support, Omni Mobile includes the ability to view an attachment on-line rather than having to download the attachment to the device and open it with the native device application. This provides much faster access to attachments. This advantage exists because Omni Mobile leverages the power of the WebAccess HTML viewer.
• Omni Mobile is "out-of-the box" compatible with GroupWise 7 and 6.x and can be configured to provide GroupWise wireless email with GroupWise 5.5 EP.
• With Omni Mobile version 2.5, expected in early fall 2006, Omni Mobile will provide GroupWise wireless email for Pocket PC, Windows Mobile, Sony Ericsson, Nokia Series 60 and BlackBerry devices from a single server installation. There are no additional Windows servers required.

The full GroupWise Omni Mobile client provides an enhanced client experience versus the native PIM application used by devices accessing the Novell GroupWise Mobile Server. Omni Mobile has no restrictions on the size of GroupWise address books. Because Omni Mobile installs directly on your existing GroupWise WebAccess server running on Linux, NetWare or Windows, it saves you significant money on hardware, software, maintenance, patches and updates. With version 2.5 support for BlackBerry devices, you will not need to install multiple Windows servers to support multiple BlackBerry and other mobile platforms for your users. Omni Mobile leverages your existing secure GroupWise infrastructure and provides the best ROI.

A: GroupWise PDA Connect is Novell's free solution for cradle-sync synchronization to Palm and Pocket PC PDA devices. PDA Connect does not support wireless GroupWise email synchronisation for smart phones like the Treo 700w, 650, iPAQ 6515, Sony Ericsson P910, P900, P800 or Nokia 60 series devices. It uses a workstation cradle-sync process to synchronise GroupWise information into the native PIM on the device rather than providing a complete GroupWise experience. It does not allow multiple folders, multiple address books or GroupWise implementation of tasks, notes, etc. GroupWise PDA Connect requires a Windows desktop for synchronisation. GroupWise PDA Connect only has support for Palm and Pocket PC PDAs. GroupWise PDA Connect does not have support for wireless devices or Over-the-Air synchronization. GroupWise PDA Connect does not support Windows Mobile 2005 devices.

A: Depending on the cause of the problem:

• If it is a device hardware or OTA connectivity challenge, you would contact your telco/service provider.
• If it is an Omni Mobile problem, you should check whether you can access GroupWise WebAccess from the internet. Next refer to either "Omni Mobile Server Tips" or "Omni Mobile Client Tips". You can also refer to the specific client forums for each device platform in our ""Omni Mobile Forums". Finally you can email our technical support team at support@omni-ts.com, use our "Contact Us" form or call us at +1.780.423.4200.

A: We recommend the Cingular 8125, or the HP iPAQ 6515, or Palm Treo 700w. Not only do these devices provide great access to GroupWise with Omni Mobile and Omni Messenger, they deliver native access to attachments, the best browsing experience, acceptable battery life, a very good phone, a good set of default applications and the best graphic user experience available on a PDA. These are great devices. I must admit, however, that using the RDP client is a bit of a challenge when viewing my 1024 x 768 remote desktop from the 240 x 240 screen. Click here to read a full article on how to choose the best PDA for GroupWise.

A: Omni Mobile 2.x provides support for a wide array of PDA and smart phone devices. See "Omni Mobile Compatible Devices" for a complete list of supported devices. Each device platform will react to the Omni Mobile client differently. See "Client Limitations of Different mobile Platforms" for more details.

A: Requirements for most installations are described in the "System Requirements" page. In most environments, we do not expect that you would have to change anything in your infrastructure until you start to get upwards of 200 Omni Mobile users on your system. To discuss your specific scalability questions, contact our Omni Mobile technical team at +1.780.423.4200.

A: No. The only requirement is that port 80 (HTTP) and/or 443 (SSL for supported devices) be available through your firewall to your GroupWise WebAccess server. These are the same ports that are required to provide your users access to GroupWise WebAccess over the Internet.

A: Yes and No. Omni Mobile can support GroupWise environments where the Domain, Post Offices and WebAccess Agents are clustered. While some environments may have several independant WebAccess Application servers installed in a load balancing 'array', it is not technically possible to install WebAccess Application servers into a fail-over or fault-tolerant cluster.

The Omni Mobile Version 3 development schedule includes an EMM (Enterprise Management Module) that will support installing Omni Mobile into a load-balanced, multi-application server 'array'.

A: Omni Mobile talks "through" the GroupWise WebAccess APIs to communicate directly with your GroupWise account. This is completely transparent to the user. WebAccess also provides the familiar interface that allows users to self-configure their synchronisation policy options: folders and address books to synchronise, number of days of calendar entries to store on the mobile device, etc. See "GroupWise Mobile PDA Access" for a summary of how Omni Mobile works with GroupWise WebAccess.

A: No. Omni Mobile server is installed onto the server hosting the GroupWise WebAccess application server (web server). Users must be able to access their standard WebAccess account from the Internet. Omni Mobile is compatible with GroupWise WebAccess 6.5.3 server or higher and GroupWise WebAccess 7.0 server or higher installed on NetWare, OES, SLES or Microsoft Windows server.

A: Omni Mobile does not depend on any specific commercial carrier-based hardware or software. All carriers are compatible with Omni Mobile devices. Omni Mobile supports over-the-air devices on any service provider network that allows your handheld device to communicate with the internet. This includes GPRS, CDMA, iDEN, Edge, WiFi, Blue Tooth and all other wireless/over-the-air protocols. Omni Mobile has been successfully tested on all major service provider networks.

A: Omni Mobile is a relatively new product. One of its strengths is that Omni Mobile communication is transparent to the service providers. Telcos are just now beginning to become aware of how Omni Mobile automatically works with devices on their networks. As telcos become more aware of how well Omni Mobile works with devices on their networks, we expect more Telcos to recommend Omni Mobile as a preferred GroupWise e-mail mobile access option.

A: The Omni Mobile licence is installed on the server running the Omni Mobile server module. The licence is applied by logging into the Mobile Administrator account and accessing the Licensing tab. Omni Mobile licences are device specific. That means that one user can now run Omni Mobile clients on multiple devices for the same GroupWise email account. Ther Omni Mobile server module associates each device to the user's WebAccess email account where the devices can be managed. The important thing to remember is that each device running the Omni Mobile client that has connected to the Omni Mobile server consumes one license count.

The number of licences is retained by the server in a licence pool. Once a licence has been issued to a device by the server, if that device is not used for 30 days, the licence is returned to the Omni Mobile licence pool. This works similar to Novell user licences and DHCP licences in that licences that are not consumed for a period of time (in our case, 30 days) are returned to the pool.

A user can also delete a licence from an existing device, thereby making the licence available for a different device. This is done in the Omni Mobile / General tab. Select the "Deleted" drop-down option for the device that you want to remove from the licence pool, select Update and this device will be removed and available for a different device to connect. Of course, the device from which the licence was Deleted will not be able to be used with Omni Mobile. Please refer to "How to Manage Devices" and "Reprovision a Device" in the Omni Mobile User Guide for more information.

A: There are no additional Microsoft Windows servers, database servers or other hardware or software requirements to purchase. There are no monthly fees to be paid to Omni Technology Solutions for using Omni Mobile. You will have to pay for the monthly fees charged by your commercial service provider for access to their data networks. Omni Mobile comes with 30 days of software updates and maintenance. You can buy the extended software maintenance and updates for 30% of the purchase price. This can be renewed annually.

A: Omni Mobile for GroupWise 2.0 supports "Desktop-based" and "Browser-based" client installation. Administrators can use the Omnimobile-Desktop program or the new "On Device" first run wizard to transfer client .pdb database files to the device. After the initial installation, Over-the-Air devices will be updated without needing to be reconnected to the desktop. The Omni Mobile client can be installed from Novell Linux Desktop, Macintosh OSX and Windows workstations.

See the "Omni Mobile Administrator Guide" and the "Omni Mobile User Guide" availabe at Omni Mobility Guides for more details.

A: No. There is no software required to be running on your workstation for Omni Mobile to synchronise to your GroupWise account. The Omni Mobile client talks directly to the Omni Mobile server module installed on your GroupWise WebAccess server. With version 2.0, the Omni Moible client can be installed and configured directly on the mobie device (over the air) without any workstation being required.

A: Omni Mobile version 2.2 provides AES 192-bit encryption for password credentials at ALL TIMES on all supported platforms., and supports SSL on Pocket PC and Windows Mobile devices and smart phones.

The release of Omni Mobile 2.3 includes an upgrade to the Appforge Crossfire 6.5.2 client which provides Secure Socket Layer (SSL) encryption when using commercial or non-commercial (locally generated) certificate on all Omni Mobile supported PDAs and smart phones. We highly recommend the immediate upgrade to the Omni Mobile 2.3 client on all devices to support SSL data encryption.

A: Omni Mobile fully supports extended character sets (accents) in account names, folder names, subject lines and message content. Version 2.x ships with English language menu options. The names of the default folders will be in the language that is configured for GroupWise Web Access when the initial account PDBs are created. The Omni Mobile calendar will be in the language that is configured on the device. So, within the same company, if different users have different WebAccess language configurations and device configurations, the default folders and calendar will appear in the configured language. Future versions will include support for languages other than English for the WebAccess User Self-Service Module and for the application menu options. The Enterprise Management Module will only be available in English.

A: Yes. Synchronisation is real-time "push" from the device to the server and "poll" (every five minutes) from the server to the device for receiving updates. The best way to think of the Omni Mobile client is to think of it as a standard Windows GroupWise 6.5 caching client on a smaller interface. Just as with the Windows GroupWise caching client, Omni Mobile is configured to "synchronize" every X minutes.

A: Omni Mobile 2.x includes "Live Update" synchronization for address books as defined in the Address Book Update Policies. Calendars are updated bi-directionally in real time for the date range that is configured in the Folder and Calendar policies.

Please refer to the Omni Mobile User Guide for additional details.

A: Yes. With version 2.x, the user can use the Omni Mobile GroupWise WebAccess interface to issue a "poison pill" to remotely clear (delete) the GroupWise email content from the Omni Mobile client on a device. It is important to differentiate between the Omni Mobile GroupWise email information and any personal account information that may have been configured for use in the native email, calendar and contact clients. Native email, contact and calendar information will not be cleared by the Omni Mobile "poison pill".

A: No. The Omni Mobile client synchronizes with GroupWise through the GroupWise WebAccess APIs. It does not communicate with the desktop. It doesn't matter which desktop client software is preferred by users. Users can continue to use the Windows GroupWise and Cross Platform clients, Outlook, POP3, IMAP4 clients or GroupWise WebAccess. Other than the Omni Mobile Installation software, there is no software to configure or install at the client computer for Omni Mobile to work.

A: Your users will always be able to work with their Omni Mobile client in "off line" mode. The real question is whether they will be able to synchronise their account to the GroupWise system if Internet connectivity is down. And that answer depends on which protocol your users are using to access GroupWise. If they are connecting through your commercial service provider (GPRS/iDEN/CDMA or other wireless), they will not be able to communicate/synchronise with the GroupWise server. If they are using WiFi, BlueTooth or cradle-sync from inside your network, yes, they will be able to continue to synchronise to the GroupWise server.

A: Omni Mobile 2 provides support for downloading attachments to the device to be viewed by the native applications OR by using the integrated GroupWise WebAccess HTML browser-based option to view attachments. The major advantage of using Omni Mobile's ability to leverage GroupWise WebAccess' HTML option is that there is no need to open a native application to view the document. Other advantages include: attachments are available much faster, they do not consume storage space on the device and battery usage is significantly less when compared to downloading and opening attachments in native applications. Pure HTML emails can be downloaded to the device and opened in a browser application.

A: Omni Mobile will not retrieve POP3 or IMAP4 accounts directly. However, because Omni Mobile allows you to select which folders you want to synchronise to your device, if you have GroupWise set to retrieve POP3/IMAP 4 accounts to a GroupWise folder, and you have chosen to synchronise that folder, the emails in that folder will appear on the device.

We do not plan to duplicate this functionality in the Omni Mobile client since it exists by configuring GroupWise to perform this function as outlined above. Part of the strength of Omni Mobile is based on the foundation of GroupWise WebAccess. Eventually everything that can be done through WebAccess from a workstation, will be performed from your wireless device.

A: Since 1999, Omni has created and marketed a portfolio of software products that deliver real and tangible business benefits to enterprise network users of Novell, Novell GroupWise, Novell Linux Desktop and Microsoft network and email systems software. Please visit our company information section for an in depth look at Omni Technology Solutions.

A: Yes. If you go to www.novell.com and do a search for "Omni Technology Solutions", you will see the articles and mentions of our products on Novell's web site.

A: Omni Mobile 1.0 started shipping November 22, 2005. Omni Mobile 2.0 was released on April 30, 2006. We expect version 2.4 to be released in November 2006.