At its worldwide Partner Summit here, Open-Xchange forecast its number of users will increase to more than 24 million by year end - an increase of 60 percent over the prior year.

"The acceptance and growth of software-as-a-service (SaaS) is leading to explosive growth for our e-mail and collaboration software - and leading the way as the first cloud application for many service providers," said Rafael Laguna, CEO of Open-Xchange. "It's been an extraordinary year with our SaaS revenues increasing more than 100 percent and overall revenues by 70 percent, as compared with the previous year."

At the Open X-Change Partner Summit, the company will preview its web desktop development project, which uses a browser as the primary user interface for delivery and integration of applications delivered by the service provider. The technology is expected to be introduced next year.

Recent customers include:

NEXT IT in an exclusive distribution agreement for hosted and on-premises Open-Xchange products in Japan, along with hosting provider Enet Solutions (www.enets.jp) becoming the first hosting provider to offer Open-Xchange hosted e-mail and groupware, with full Japanese language support, scheduled for implementation this month.

MessageWire, and its sister company Solar VPS, making Open-Xchange available to their customers and partners in the U.S. as a less expensive alternative to the established Microsoft Exchange and Sharepoint offering.

University of Salamanca in Spain deploying Open-Xchange at its nine campus facilities with more than 30,000 students and 2,700 faculty and administration. The implementation was handled by an Open-Xchange Business Partner based in Spain.

NetCologne, one of the largest regional telecommunication and Internet service providers in Germany, replacing its existing webmail with Open-Xchange for 250,000 customers and offering additional groupware and mobility features as Software-as-a-Service (SaaS).

EuroDNS, a domain name registrar specializing in international domain extensions, adding hosted e-mail and collaboration for its more than 250,000 customers in Luxembourg.

Sachsen DV, a leading data center operator for security critical applications in Germany, launching business-class e-mail and groupware based on Open-Xchange as SaaS for its mid-sized and enterprise customers.

The company also continues to add capabilities at an aggressive pace.

Introduction of the "Open-Xchange Microsoft Outlook Uploader," which is data migration software for users of Microsoft Outlook to easily move e-mails, contacts, appointments and tasks to Open-Xchange Server.

An Open-Xchange software update, made available in September, provides users with more than 100 improvements for e-mail, calendar, address book, document and task management. In addition, the latest version adds new "Social OX" capabilities that simplify the aggregation of e-mail and contact information from external mail services and make it easy to share documents without sending large e-mail attachments.

An agreement with eZuce to provide unified communications - combining e-mail and groupware with voice, video, instant messaging, presence, conferencing, call center and smartphone support - for enterprises with up to 10,000 users.

Working with LinuxMagic to incorporate the Open-Xchange software in its MagicMail offering that is designed as a turn-key solution for ISPs and telcos with 2,000 to 200,000 users. MagicMail comes with integrated anti-spam protection and support from LinuxMagic, one of the foremost experts in e-mail and spam security, as well as a stable redundant infrastructure built on Linux technology.

Partnering with Scality, the developer of object storage software, to provide large web hosters, ISPs and telcos with massively-scalable e-mail and cloud storage.

Open-Xchange added Japanese language support to existing support for Dutch, English, French, German and Spanish.

About Open-Xchange

Open-Xchange is the innovator of scalable and integrated open source e-mail and collaboration solutions for enterprises, academic institutions, and government authorities. The company provides on-premises versions called Open-Xchange Server Edition and Open-Xchange Appliance Edition, along with Open-Xchange Hosting Edition, which enables web hosting companies to provide an easy-to-use and feature-rich application delivered as Software as a Service (SaaS). The Open-Xchange Hosting Edition is architected to integrate into a hosting provider's existing infrastructure, such as authentication, provisioning, billing, and e-mail storage and does not require that these systems be replaced.

Open-Xchange AG is a privately-held company headquartered in Nuremberg, Germany with offices in Olpe, Germany and Tarrytown, N.Y. For more information, please visit www.open-xchange.com.