Serguei Beloussov, CEO of Parallels noted, ”Our work with Open-Xchange advances Parallels’ Open Platform initiative to provide customers with a common platform to manage and automate service delivery. The integrated solutions enable service providers to expand their product offerings and include enterprise-proven collaboration technology for the Linux platform, and deliver them to end-users via a profitable, easily accessible SaaS model.”
Parallels and Open-Xchange are creating connectors for Open-Xchange Hosting Edition into Parallels Plesk Control Panel and Parallels Business Automation, enabling hosting and service providers to deploy and run Open-Xchange seamlessly in combination with Parallels’ automation tools via a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) model.
Rafael Laguna, CEO of Open-Xchange remarked, ”This partnership extends the reach of our SaaS Messaging and Groupware offering to all hosting and service providers in the world. They can now offer hosted groupware and collaboration with zero upfront investment for hardware, software and administration for their customers, thus significantly reducing overall cost of ownership. Customers can get one-stop collaboration solutions including email hosting, disk space, backup, recovery, spam and anti-virus services at an unmatched price point.”
Using Parallels Plesk Control Panel and Parallels Business Automation, service providers will be able to manage and deliver Open-Xchange Smart Collaboration through a fully-automated platform. Service providers get the flexibility to bundle and charge separately for individual resources, such as disk space, mailbox storage limits, or shared folders. Additionally, customers will be able to order, maintain, and pay for services online so that the decision to buy or upgrade results in immediate service delivery.
Dan Golding, Vice President and Research Director at Tier 1 Research commented, ”There is significant and growing enterprise demand for hosted messaging and collaboration. At a time when some of the conventional hosted messaging choices are less appealing to hosting providers, adding new alternatives to the mix is a significant positive to the hosting industry and to enterprise customers.”
Oliver Mauss, CEO at 1 and 1 Internet Inc. and partner of Open-Xchange and Parallels added, ”This partnership enriches hosters’ business options dramatically — and changes the way small and midsized companies use software. Parallel’s management tools for Open-Xchange allow us and our resellers to deliver virtually any automated service in real-time. Additionally, this solution provides customers with the ability to independently configure and manage these automated services 24×7.”
Open-Xchange is now certified with the Application Packaging Standard (APS) as well. The APS standard is a packaging format that makes it easier for service providers to deliver hosted applications developed by independent software vendors (ISVs). APS-certified applications can be easily ”plugged into” hosting platforms that conform to the standard.
The Parallels Open Platform enables SaaS with Parallels virtualization and automation technology through integration with a wide range of third-party applications and systems. The APS standard is a key element of the Parallels Open Platform and is used by ISVs and service providers to seamlessly integrate applications to offer to the more than 10 million businesses and individuals that use Parallels products. ISVs and service providers interested in the APS Certification Program can register at www.apsstandard.com/certification.
Open-Xchange offers email, calendar, contacts, tasks and document sharing providing companies with all the tools needed to facilitate communication and efficient teamwork. Users improve their communication and teamwork with simple, intuitive tools and intelligent features, such as smart links between calendar appointments, task lists, contacts, documents, bookmarks and knowledge articles. Users get get access to their data using the AJAX-based Open-Xchange web-client or Microsoft Outlook as client software.
According to the company, the Open-Xchange Hosting Edition is the only groupware solution designed specifically to meet the needs of hosting providers. It has been architected to integrate into a hosting provider’s existing infrastructure such as authentication, provisioning, billing, and email storage rather than require that these systems be replaced. Open-Xchange Hosting Edition is built on enterprise proven open source technologies, such as Apache and MySQL, and is able to scale up to millions of users.
Open-Xchange Hosting Edition offers multi-tenant and multi-domain capabilities, enabling webhosters to serve hundreds of thousand clients in a virtual server environment. This ensures a maximum level of service and customer satisfaction, while making best use of existing hardware resources. Open-Xchange Hosting Edition offers the necessary services and interfaces to integrate into automated administration, deployment and monitoring tools, ensuring 24/7 uptime 365 days a year.
Open-Xchange Inc. created scalable and integrated open source email and collaboration solutions for enterprises, academic institutions, and government authorities. Open-Xchange Hosting Edition enables web-hosting companies to provide an easy-to-use and feature-rich application delivered as Software as a Service (SaaS). Internet service providers (ISPs), telcos and hosting providers, led by 1 and 1 Internet, deliver advanced email and groupware features through Open-Xchange Hosting Edition to millions of users. Open-Xchange Inc. is a privately held company headquartered in Tarrytown, NY, with research, development, and operations in Olpe and Nuremberg, Germany.
Parallels (formerly SWsoft) is a worldwide leader in virtualization and automation software that optimizes computing for consumers, businesses, and service providers across all major hardware, operating systems, and virtualization platforms. Founded in 1999, Parallels is a fast-growing company with 900 employees in North America, Europe, and Asia.
For more information on Open-Xchange Inc., please visit www.open-xchange.com.
