Openmail for NT Scrapped as HP Backs Microsoft

Hewlett Packard has decided to stop development of Openmail for Windows NT, which was due out later this year, to offer client-side support for Microsoft Exchange Server instead.

The announcement was the first to come out of the agreement signed by the two companies over two weeks ago in which HP agreed to promote Exchange Server as the strategic Windows NT messaging system for the enterprise.

Maxine Thompson, NT marketing manager at HP, said: ?As a general message we are not stopping development of Openmail, only the NT port of that product. Having Openmail on NT at the front-end puts us in a competitive environment.

?It doesn?t make sense to have products that compete so tightly with Microsoft?s. Hewlett Packard will work with Microsoft to build interoperability between Exchange clients and Openmail backbones.?

HP will ship Openmail 5.1 in place of Openmail for NT. Priced at $60 a user, Openmail 5.1 will offer support for Microsoft?s Outlook client for Office 97 and Exchange Server.

As part of the agreement, the two companies will introduce a range of Net PCs to fit alongside HP?s existing PC Vectra range. The Net PCs, which will be priced at $1,000, are expected to be introduced in the second half of the year.