While it may appear official, Novell has said nothing to the press regarding iPhone 2.0 integration, though they’re not required to. On Novell’s messageboards, Dean Lythgoe, the Director of GroupWise Engineering posted this message to a GroupWise mailing list:

“Novell and the GroupWise team have been working for some time on integration between GroupWise and the iPhone. We have reached out to Apple several times for updates and plans. Apple had indicated that there were two major things that would be happening around the iPhone in the coming months and with their latest announcement they have spelled out those two things.

1. The iPhone would become available on Corporate plans
2. An SDK would be released that would allow synchronization type applications

Novell is committed to providing a solution that allows users access to their email, calendar and contacts on the iPhone. As the SDK was just released, we are still working out the details and will announce more specific plans when appropriate.

We understand the demand that the recent announcements will generate and we will work quickly to provide comparable solutions with GroupWise.”

I’d say that this rather clearly indicates Novell’s interest in providing a solution as soon as they can. IBM is also said to be working on an iPhone version of Lotus Notes. This is all wrapping up rather nicely, or at least it will once these things actually ship!

written by Tyler Regas