Open-source Challenge To Exchange Gains Steam 164
jbrodkin writes "An open-source, cloud-based e-mail alternative to Microsoft Exchange called Open-Xchange has signed up two new service providers and predicts it will have 40 million users by the end of 2011. Based in Germany, Open-Xchange has tripled its user base from 8 million to 24 million paid seats since 2008, with the help of three dozen service providers including 1&1 Internet, among the world's largest Web hosting companies. Microsoft is still the 800-pound gorilla, with a worldwide install base of 301 million mailboxes in 2010, expected to reach 470 million by 2014. But Open-Xchange is luring numerous service providers who are wary of Microsoft's attempts to compete against its own partners by selling hosted e-mail services directly to its customers."
OpenChange and SOGo - Truly free/freedom Exchange (Score:5, Informative)
Don't worry about Open-Xchange, OpenChange + SOGo is the real open source alternative:
http://www.openchange.org/index.php/component/content/article/7-news/55-openchange-and-sogo-the-first-interoperable-and-exchange-compatible-groupware-solution
- OpenChange Server is a transparent and native Exchange replacement for Microsoft Outlook users working on top of Samba 4. With OpenChange, you don't need costly MAPI connectors anymore.
- SOGo is a reliable groupware server with a focus on scalability and open standards. Let your Mozilla Thunderbird/Lightning, Apple iCal/iPhone, BlackBerry and now Microsoft Outlook users collaborate using a modern platform.
No per-seat CALS or license fees whatsovever.
A link would have been nice (Score:5, Informative)
Here's the direct link to go read about it if you don't want to go through the networkworld blogspam article: http://www.open-xchange.com/ [open-xchange.com]
The "Server edition" is $1300, and they make you open a blind link to a PDF to figure that out.
Here's a handy feature matrix but noticeably absent is the free "community edition": http://oxpedia.org/index.php?title=OX_Product_Matrix [oxpedia.org]
Also, the activesync thing (oxtender) is completely non-free and only available in the licensed versions.
Re:A link would have been nice (Score:2, Informative)
As opposed to:
http://www.openchange.org
Which only has the free/freedom community edition.
How are they better? (Score:3, Informative)
First of all, it is technically open source, but the license the community edition uses means it cannot legally be used by businesses.
It is definitely not a free alternative to M$ Exchange.
Each user license costs $52 for this product, an M$ Exchange CAL costs about as much, maybe a few bucks more.
Whoever designed the web access GUI went icon crazy and they are not very meaningful either.
Outlook Web Access is simple, this contraption had me guessing at what buttons do.
I manage an Exchange 2007 environment with roughly 700 users depending on it.
Originally having no experience, I got a test server up and running within a day.
The administrator tools are simple, powerful, and reliable; overall we have not had any serious issues in the past three years.
I also know that if something goes wrong, there is M$ support, service packs, backup software, DB repair tools, forums, etc.
Here is what happens with an open source product:
You install the product and spend the next couple of hours wading through text config files.
When you do manage to get the product to work, the thing does not work as expected.
You spend the next couple of hours cranking up debugging output and wading through source code.
If you are really masochistic you end up compiling your own build after you have found a bug.
Now in some cases going open source is worth the pain, especially when it brings additional functionality and cost savings.
Unfortunately, this open source product has the goal of duplicating functionality at a similar price point.
An additional thing to consider is that most open source products need more maintenance and labor.
This additional labor is highly in demand and is not at all cheap, which might make this an even more expensive solution than the original.
Re:How much does it cost to set up local BSD/Linux (Score:5, Informative)
The problem with this view is that it is missing some functionality that people now consider part of email thanks to Microsoft and Outlook/Exchange or Lotus Notes/Domino. If you have never worked in a company that makes use of these features you wouldn't understand - but if any of your coworkers have they will expect them from you and will find your IMAP mail system to inadequate and unacceptable.
First is Calendaring - inviting people to appointments and booking in meeting rooms and shared resources (projectors etc) to those meetings. They even will recommend times when all the attendees and equipment is free. If you change the time it informs everyone and moves in all their calendars. This is not to mention sharing your calendar with others so everyone can keep track of where/what your team is up to. And you can do all of this on your mobile phone (ActiveSync or Blackberry) and have it update your server/client immediately.
Contacts - you can see all the people in your team, department and company. You can share your contacts with your coworkers. When you or they change them your phone updates with the changes immediately. I've seen our director's assistant add contacts to his mailbox via Outlook and he can call them from his phone's contacts within less than a minute when on the road.
Delegation - your assistant/gatekeeper or the person filling in for you when you are on leave can respond to your email and meeting requests on your behalf. It even says Susie Q on Behalf of John Doe etc. You can also have a departmental or a support or an information mailbox that many people check and share responsibility for.
Not to mention that Exchange offers the significant advantages of a large ecosystem of applications, tools and trained professionals that can back it up, maintain it, fix it, merge it, replicate it and all kinds of other things that you will eventually need to do in the life-cycle of an average modern mail system. I am dealing with a merger of two companies at the moment and them both running Exchange is a godsend - I'm glad it isn't an OpenExchange system I am having to merge with...
Re:How are they better? (Score:4, Informative)