My trip to Poland started on the birthday of our Queen Beatrix on April 30. For us in the Netherlands this is a national holiday, also a day full of celebrations in each and every city and village around the country. On such a day, the Queen and her family visit one or two cities and mingle with the local people, enjoying all kind of games, play music, dance and so on. This year the celebrations were rudely disturbed when somehow a car managed to pass the security perimeter and drove full speed into the crowd in an attempt to hurt the royal family. No speed limits were obeyed and the result was devastating: 7 people were killed (CNN mentions 5, but this is "old" news) and many more ended up in hospital. Our small country is in shock, the Queens birthday celebrations will never be the same and tomorrow (Friday) night we will commemorate our losses. The rest of the world was informed via the media like CNN and then of course had to move on.

 

While driving from Rotterdam (NL) to Wraclow (PL) I had many hours to think about all of this. On the A2 motorway towards Berlin I passed the old communist border-posts which had been part of the Iron Curtain between East and West and I realized that for many people some parts of Europe still seems to be far away, both mentally and physically. The distance from Rotterdam to Wroclaw is only 1.033 kilometers, while the distance from Munich (DE) to Hamburg (DE) and from Dover (UK) to Edinburgh (UK) is appr. 800 kilometer and Calais (F R) to Marseille (FR) is even 1.078 kilometer. However, in the minds of many people Eastern Europe is still very distant, dark and gloomy, while my experiences in the past few years have been quite the opposite. Therefore I was not surprised when on arrival in Wroclaw the local team headed by Rafal Kruschewski had managed to book another great location for the EMEA Tour event. The venue was a very nicely reinstated building from before WW2 in a beautiful park: one of the best locations for any EMEA Tour event we have had so far.

 

On Monday evening we made some final preparations for our event for which more than 120 people (!!) had registered, after which we enjoyed a very nice dinner in the city centre (food is always good in Poland!). On Tuesday we welcomed our guests and as many local speakers were available and willing to contribute, my role on this day was limited to delivering a session on "How to become a GroupWise 8 Poweruser", which I delivered with my usual enthusiasm for the subject. Other sessions discussed Teaming, ZENWorks, Open En terprise Server en NOWS and all in all this was very well received.

 

As there was a ZOO nearby, somehow Rafal had managed to arrange the visit of a gigantic penguin, which was a nice surprise for everyone present. For the lunch we had a slight problem, as the venue was slightly overbooked by so many attendees, however the kitchen and serving staff managed to deliver some good food to all of us in as short a time as possible - very efficient! During the afternoon I went to the nearby Altkom Training Center to prepare the next day's training session for some Novell partners. As this training was also overbooked, 15 people for 12 seats, I was very glad that Piotr Zadrożny helped me to get everything set up properly. That way we were finished around 1:00 Am, which actually allowed us to get a few hours of sleep.

 

On Wednesday I delivered a workshop to the partners about GroupWise 8 upgrade and Teaming, including a preview of the upcoming new 2.0 release. The amount of information for one day was overwhelming, still looking at the responses it was very well received and digested. As good food is important in Poland, both the lunch in Hotel Tumski (on the right) and the dinner at the main market square were excellent again. When walking to the main square I noticed once again how beautiful Wroclaw is, with churches and cathedrals at almost each street corner it is indeed nice to see how this old city is revitalized and attarctive for both the local people as well as the tourists.

 

And then, in this religious atmosphere, on arrival at the main market square, I was hit by lightning (not literally ;-) by Madonna. Well, not by the holy Madonna, but by the famous artist operating under that name, as her face was all over a gigantic billboard on one of the buildings on the square. Imagine the enormous transition this formerly communistic country with strong catholic roots has made in the last 20-30 years, now being able to "enjoy" the presence of Madonna delivering her "Sweet and Sticky" tour here soon. By the way, do you notice the miracles you can do with Paintshop when looking at the image on the right - Madonna seems to get younger year by year - a real miracle!

 

So here we are: our world is getting smaller and smaller and is full of wonderful transitions into some new and exciting. Look at the strong development in this region, the enormous Tour-de-Force that Poland and other countries in the formerly communistic region are undergoing. And the result that people like Rafal and the other members of his team have been showing these last 5 years have been incredible. For me this region is full of promises and new potential and I enjoy in bringing some tiny elements to help with that transition.

 

Now here is some more good news: I'm very proud to be able to announce a new Open Horizons project: as part of a unique cooperation between members of Open Horizons in Germany and the United Kingdom we will soon be able to deliver "The GroupWise 8 Administration" guide. This book will deliver a unique blend of German "Grundlichkeit" with English "perfection" by combining the skills of Uwe Carsten Krause (DE) with those of John Ellis (UK). As you might remember, I'm one of the two authors of "The Group Wise 7 Admin" guide, however I do not have the time myself to write a new version of that book myself. I'm therefore very glad that the German book which Uwe has already created will now be translated by John, the chairman of Open Horizons UK. The expected delivery date is end of August, more news will follow soon!

 

I'm also very glad when next week I will be able to hold the first printed version of "The GroupWise Powerguide - Second Edition" in my hands. The book has been printed both in Europe and in the USA and is availabe now for sale at Amazon.com and can be ordered at many local book shops as well. It is the result of many months of hard work by a great team of people. And I'm even more proud of the team of translators in Germany, France, Sweden, the Netherlands and Poland, as these volunteers are working very hard on the translated version of the book. More informati on about this can be found at www.open-horizons.net/powerguide.

 

I'm almost back home now to contribute to some other cool projects: this weekend we will start with the closed beta of GroupWise@Home, where we are creating a version of GroupWise which can be used at home for your own personal POP3 and IMAP4 accounts. This will allow you to enjoy all the great features of GroupWise 8 for your personal accounts as well, which is of course much better than alternatives like Outlook Express, which is really a subset of features from the full Outlook corporate client. Based on the results of the closed beta, we hope to be able to release this in open beta soon. Stay tuned!

 

All I can tell based on my experiences of the last week: Poland is a great country, which is transforming very rapidly and will soon be the center of the most important region of Europe. Make sure to visit it soon now, to be able to appreciate the differences you will see the next 5 to 10 years. In the five years that I've been there now I've seen how they are hitting the "Fast Forward" button there and I certainly want to be back for more. And remember, as so many attendees of our events have already experienced: the Open Horizons EMEA Tour can be as "Sticky and Sweet" as Madonna - our speakers might be less good looking, but their performance is at least the same: excellent as the many attendees will acknowledge! We hope you will join us soon at any of our events, it will be great to see you there!

 

Kind regards,

 

Erno de Korte