Open-Xchange offers alternative to MS Exchange
By John Mathews
Open-Xchange, a provider of open source groupware, has launched a new offering for small and medium-size businesses (SMBs) seeking an alternative email and collaboration software to Microsoft Exchange.
The Open-Xchange Appliance Edition is server software that comes with operating system, capabilities for email, calendar and document sharing, managing contacts and tasks, as well as backup and recovery, anti-spam and anti-virus protection.
Rafael Laguna, CEO of Open-Xchange, said: "Small- and mid-sized business owners are demanding the same capabilities as large corporations. Our new Appliance Edition gives these businesses advanced collaboration tools at affordable costs, while enabling service providers an opportunity to give their clients more features at a lower cost as a virtual dedicated server offering."
Built using a combination of Open-Xchange Hosting Edition and Univention Corporate Server 2.1, the collaboration software enables users to get access to their relevant data and documents with either the AJAX-based web interface or Microsoft Outlook.
Included is a fully-supported Debian-based Linux, along with Samba file and print services, and software connectors for Microsoft Active Directory to facilitate user and group administration, as well as integration into existing IT infrastructure.
According to Open-Xchange, Appliance Edition supports virtualization technologies, VMware and Xen, enabling quick installation and a virtual dedicated server deployment by service providers to multiple customers.
Appliance Edition will be available from November 2008 through the Open-Xchange Online Shop as well as Open-Xchange and Univention partners.