In case you haven't noticed, I don't normally blog about other vendors technology, but this email came into my inbox last night and I had a great chuckle about it. It’s important to me that I stay on top of various technologies and interoperability across all platforms IT Professionals might use in their day to day jobs.  This includes signing up for and attending marketing and technical events from various software companies.  I mean hey – We’re (software vendors) all trying to add what we believe is value in the industry - they are more then welcome to come out to my events if they want…

What was the title of the email? "Friends don't let friends use Exchange".   The email opens up with an eye catching statement "You know them. Your poor unfortunate friends. The ones who have to use Exchange day after day after excruciating, virus-plagued day…" … It's an invitation for attending a Novell marketing event talking about GroupWise 7. The email goes on to say, "...if you care about your friends who are Exchange administrators and you want to introduce them to GroupWise, you should have them sign up” and you get a chance to win a $4000 vacation for two to Hawaii.

To give them credit - it's an interesting twist to try to get people out to an event.

I’m not going to comment on the obvious marketing message as that is just what it is.

What I did find funny, besides the title/introduction (which I have to say did catch my eye) was the bottom section of the rules and regulations.  If you read the rules and regulations (an yes, I DO read EULAs before clicking YES I AGREE on software installs) at the bottom of the page under General Conditions it states:

“Sponsor reserves the right, in its sole discretion to cancel or suspend this promotion should a virus, bug or other cause beyond the control of the sponsor corrupt the administration, security or proper operation of the promotion.”

If they are worried about this - given their opening statement in the email (they state: GroupWise is the most secure and reliable mail system on the planet…) does that mean Novell is not running GroupWise as their internal mail product?

;-)