U.K. Managed Cloud Services Provider iomart Group to Upgrade 300,000 E-mail Accounts with Open-Xchange

NUREMBERG, GERMANY, February 04, 2011 (Press-News.org) Following a successful pilot project, U.K.-based managed cloud services company iomart Group will migrate over 300,000 customer e-mail accounts to the Open-Xchange e-mail and collaboration platform, providing end users with a more feature-rich service. In addition, iomart's customers will be able to upgrade to advanced groupware features and mobility support in Open-Xchange - providing the company with additional value-added services.

iomart Group (www.iomart.com) is one of the U.K.'s largest providers of managed hosting and cloud services. Serving every level of business from SME (small- and medium enterprise) to large corporate , trading through its iomart Hosting, Easyspace, RapidSwitch and Titan Internet brands, the Group currently manages hosting services for more than 300,000 customers daily. The company is listed on the London Stock Exchange's Alternative Investment Market (AIM).

Open-Xchange integrates e-mail, calendar, contact and task management with advanced groupware features such as information management and document sharing, along with cutting-edge social network integration. By adding the Open-Xchange mobility support option, users can receive push e-mail and synchronization of contacts, calendar and other information from their Open-Xchange account to their smartphones, including Android, BlackBerry, iPhone, Nokia, Windows Mobile and others.

Open-Xchange's unique "Social OX" features give users the ability to consolidate any kind of existing webmail accounts — for example from Google and Yahoo — into a folder in Open-Xchange so they can be managed more easily. Plus, contact details from social networks such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Xing can be added automatically to the Open-Xchange address book — giving users easy access to the latest contact information within their personal network. Also, users can now integrate messaging feeds from Twitter and Facebook and merge their calendar and address books from Google into Open-Xchange, as well.

"Service providers of every type are realizing the opportunity to provide their customers with value-added services on top of e-mail as an additional revenue source," said Rafael Laguna, CEO of Open-Xchange. "We worked closely with iomart on a pilot project and expect a rapid rollout to their customer base."

"We view information technology delivery as a service, with on-demand, cloud-based systems able to scale to meet the needs of users with those users paying for the flexible capacity they use," said Bill Strain, chief technology officer, iomart Group. "Offering Open-Xchange collaboration services is very much in line with our strategy of focusing on delivering services from within every layer of the cloud-based hosting model, from the core infrastructure service layer to the complex application hosting layer."

"In our pilot, we were impressed with the ease in which Open-Xchange integrated in our own infrastructure and with its deployment capabilities. The groupware is rich in features and enables us to offer our customers a totally flexible, affordable model allowing feature choice on an individual basis."

About iomart Group
Founded in 1998 as an integrated Internet and telecommunications company, the Group has grown to become one of the U.K.'s largest providers of managed hosting and cloud services. The group currently serves both the consumer and business hosting markets through its brands - iomart Hosting, Easyspace, RapidSwitch and Titan Internet.

Having been at the forefront of the U.K.'s technological revolution for more than a decade, the Group has developed an enviable reputation for its Internet expertise, its service ethic and its product innovation. By owning its own U.K. data center and network infrastructure, it is able to deliver the complete set of vertical components in the hosting arena from domain names, virtual and managed servers through to complex managed cloud hosting solutions.

About Open-Xchange
Open-Xchange is the innovator of scalable and integrated open source e-mail and collaboration solutions for enterprises, academic institutions and government authorities. The company provides on-premises versions called Open-Xchange Server Edition and Open-Xchange Appliance Edition, along with Open-Xchange Hosting Edition, which enables web hosting companies to provide an easy-to-use and feature-rich application delivered as Software as a Service (SaaS). The Open-Xchange Hosting Edition is architected to integrate into a hosting provider's existing infrastructure, such as authentication, provisioning, billing and e-mail storage and does not require that these systems be replaced.

Open-Xchange AG is a privately-held company headquartered in Nuremberg, Germany with offices in Olpe, Germany and Tarrytown, N.Y. For more information, please visit http://www.open-xchange.com.