Open-Xchange Adds Support for Univention Corporate Server 3.0

Makes it Easy to Move On-Premises Deployments to the Cloud

NUREMBERG and BREMEN, Germany, June 28, 2012 – Open-Xchange, a supplier of business-class email and collaboration software, now supports the Linux infrastructure solution Univention Corporate Server (UCS) 3.0, which makes it easy for organizations to move their on-premises installations of Open-Xchange to private clouds or to move from one cloud to another.

Combining Open-Xchange with UCS 3.0 significantly reduces administrative costs and makes it easy to integrate into existing IT infrastructure. The combination is ideal for educational institutions, public administrations, small- and medium-size businesses which can manage users, groups and servers from a central, graphical administration interface.

“UCS has always been the ideal operating system and management platform for on-premises deployments of Open-Xchange,” said Rafael Laguna, CEO of Open-Xchange. "Open-Xchange and Univention provide turnkey solutions for email and collaboration in a maintained open source server infrastructure – with the ability to work with Microsoft Active Directory, as well. Now, this successful combination becomes a powerful solution for cloud-based setups, too."

“While Open-Xchange provides a very powerful and easy-to-use collaboration solution, which fits very well into the needs of many customers, it is very exciting to work with this company because it is one of the most visionary vendors in groupware,” said Peter Ganten, managing director and founder of Univention. “Together with Open-Xchange, we provide a complete, integrated and easy-to-manage solution, which can be integrated into existing environments, such as Microsoft Active Directory. UCS and Open-Xchange together can be used as a physical or virtual appliance, either on-premises or in the cloud. Furthermore, the combination supports Active Directory, along with many domain and infrastructure services. There has never been any similar appliance that has provided this capability before.”

Open-Xchange integrates email, calendar, contact and task management with advanced collaboration and cutting-edge social network integration. Personal contacts from social networks like Facebook, LinkedIn or Xing can be added easily to the Open-Xchange address book. By adding Open-Xchange mobility capabilities, users can push email and synchronize contacts, calendars and other information from their Open-Xchange accounts to their smartphones -- including iPhone, Android-based devices, Nokia and Windows Phone.

UCS 3.0 comes with a completely revised, central web interface for system and domain administration, management of servers, workstations and desktops, as well as software monitoring and software distribution. Also, UCS provides user and rights management for all applications, independently of whether these are run in the cloud or traditional, on-premises in the company. It is the first commercial product to integrate Samba 4, the next generation of open source software for Microsoft-compatible domain management that enables IT professionals to construct more complex Active Directory domains and ensure interoperability with upcoming Microsoft Windows operating systems. This ensures that LDAP directory and Microsoft Active Directory can be used in parallel.

Pricing and availability

A one-year software subscription for Open-Xchange Advanced Server Edition including software connectors for Microsoft Outlook and Business Mobility for 10 users is $364.50 / 270.00 EUR. Organizations interested in taking a test drive can download a full-featured virtual machine of the latest Open-Xchange Advanced Server Edition integrated with UCS 3.0 at http://knowledgebase.open-xchange.com/download-install/advanced-server-edition/demo.html

About Open-Xchange

For more than a decade, Open-Xchange has been delivering innovative, cost-effective, open source collaboration alternatives for email, calendar, contacts and document management. The company is a pioneer in SaaS (software as a service) and now a leading email and collaboration cloud application, which provides integration with social and business networks, as well as mobile access. Open-Xchange is used by the largest web host providers in the world, as well as on-premises by some 3,500 businesses, governments and educational institutions. Open-Xchange AG is a privately-held company headquartered in Nuremberg, Germany with offices in Olpe, Germany and Tarrytown, N.Y. For more information, visit www.open-xchange.com.

About Univention

Univention is a leading European provider of Open Source products for the cost-efficient operation and effective administration of IT infrastructures. At the heart of our offer is the Linux infrastructure solution Univention Corporate Server (UCS). UCS is a modern enterprise Linux distribution with an integrated Open Source solution for identity and infrastructure management, which makes efficient, centrally-controlled administration possible even in challenging environments – both in companies and in clouds. The core product UCS is complemented with, among other things, products building on it for the cross-platform administration of thin clients, an Open Source desktop for professional users and an integrated server and desktop virtualization solution. Thanks to the supplied connectors, the products are ideal for use with, for example, the Microsoft Active Directory, integrate perfectly in existing infrastructures and allow simple migration. An increasing number of software manufacturers, including the groupware manufacturers Open-Xchange, Zarafa and Kolab Systems, ECM manufacturers and suppliers of VolP solutions offer optimized packages for operation with UCS, which can be integrated in the UCS management system among other things. UCS is thus the Open Source integration platform for IT infrastructure operation and management.