A preview to the new version of Open-Xchange Server Edition, which facilitates effective teamwork and enables document sharing anywhere, anytime, with any device has been announced today by the leading provider of open source groupware, Open-Xchange Inc.

To provide companies with all the tools needed to facilitate communication and efficient teamwork, Open-Xchange offers contacts, calendar, email, tasks and document sharing. With simple, intuitive tools and intelligent features, such as smart links between calendar appointments, documents, contacts, task lists, bookmarks and knowledge articles, customers can improve communication and teamwork.

CTO of Open-Xchange, Juergen Geck, declared: "Today, we're making available to users and IT professionals a free preview of the upcoming release of Open-Xchange Server Edition, which is the only remaining open and independent collaboration platform that can scale to millions of users." Jurgen added: "We welcome participation by the open source community and are fully committed to open standards and enabling industry partners and community members to extend this Java- and OSGi-based communication platform far beyond traditional groupware functionality."

The successor of Open-Xchange Server 5, Open-Xchange Server Edition, is expected to be released in Q3, 2008. As of today, Open-Xchange Server is installed by more than 3,500 companies and organizations worldwide.

Leading hosting providers, led by JMF (Japan), 1&1 Internet (Germany), Network Solutions (U. S.), OVH (France), and Hostpoint (Switzerland), provide millions of users worldwide with hosted business-class email, personal information management (PIM), and full groupware solutions built on Open-Xchange.

Open-Xchange Inc. is the innovator of scalable and integrated open source email and collaboration solutions for academic institutions, enterprises, 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&1 Internet, deliver advanced email and groupware features through Open-Xchange Hosting Edition to millions of users.