Small business owners looking for an affordable alternative to the Microsoft Exchange e-mail platform can look forward to a hosted, cost-effective and feature-rich e-mail and collaboration service, from Network Solutions and Open-Xchange.  

Open-Xchange and Network Solutions have partnered to deliver a hosted e-mail service to small- and medium-sized businesses. In the near future, Network Solutions will offer Open-Xchange's advanced web-based personal information management (PIM) client as an option to its customers. Based on Open-Xchange's award-winning Smart Collaboration technology, the agreement will provide Network Solutions’ customers with highly-integrated and feature-rich e-mail, calendaring, contact and task management, through an easy-to-use interface.

“Integrating Open-Xchange into our e-mail and hosting platform will provide our customers with enterprise level e-mail and collaboration services at a price small businesses can afford,” said Bill Jolly, director of product development, Network Solutions. “This solution will provide small businesses with access to the functionality that large businesses enjoy today. Our customers will have the ability to easily make and receive meeting requests, share calendars, share documents and schedule resources using a state-of-the-art e-mail interface.”

 
“We are pleased to work with Network Solutions as this partnership shows how service providers can grow their business by offering new valuable services to their customers using open source technologies,” said Rafael Laguna, CEO of Open-Xchange. "More businesses, small and large, are looking to ‘Software as a Service’ (SaaS) to deliver the applications they need in a cost effective manner.”

Open-Xchange integrates e-mail, calendaring, contacts and task management with advanced groupware features such as information management and document sharing. Productivity is enhanced through unique teamwork features, like team view, single-password document sharing, and shared calendars, contacts, tasks and documents.

Users can upgrade to the full-featured groupware and document management solution and the option of synchronizing with Microsoft Outlook will be available. Later this year, Network Solutions will replace its existing webmail application with the new module from Open-Xchange, which uses an innovative AJAX web interface to deliver enhanced usability.   

Further customization by end-users will be possible through the use of web applications including RSS feeds, local weather forecasts, sports and videos, all of which can be integrated with a few clicks into their individual Open-Xchange portal page that uses Netvibes Universal Widget API (UWA). Open-Xchange's document system can easily be integrated into users' desktops using WebDAV. This means it can be viewed and used just like any other folder in their system.

For more information on Open-Xchange contact Glenn Rossman, glenn@bakercg.com at Baker Communications Group.