Systems Solutions Builds Turnkey Open-Xchange Box

Published: February 28, 2006

by Timothy Prickett Morgan

If you are looking for a turnkey messaging and groupware solution, then open source messaging software supplier Open-Xchange and its partner, Systems Solutions have a deal for you.

The two have worked to take the commercial license of the Open-Exchange 5 messaging product, added in a Linux operating system and an IBM xSeries server, baked at 350 degrees (well, not literally, but figuratively), and created a line of turnkey email servers that span from five to 200 users.

"Open-source has established itself in organizations of all sizes," explains Dan Kusnetzky, executive vice president of marketing strategy for Open-Xchange. (You will recognize Kusnetzky's name, since he was the lead operating system analyst for IDC for as long as anyone can remember.) "This approach to development is highly responsive to changes to the environment. Systems Solutions brings together the best of breed open-source operating systems and collaboration software so customers experience a straightforward solution that is flexible and cost effective," says Kusnetzky.

The bundled solution includes either Red Hat Enterprise Linux or Novell SUSE Linux Enterprise Server. Prices for the solution--which is built by Systems Solutions, an IBM business partner located in New York City--range from $1,250 for a machine configured for five users to $8,042 for a machine set up for 200 users. That base box is an xSeries 100 tower server with a 2.8 GHz Pentium 4 processor, 512 MB of main memory, and an 80 GB disk; this machine can be expanded to have 8 GB of memory and 500 GB of disk. Other solutions are based on the xSeries 206 tower server, an xSeries 306m, an xSeries 336, and an xSeries 346.

Those prices include the cost of the server and support licenses for the Linux operating system and Open-Xchange groupware. The deal also includes basic configuration of the email server to interface with existing Outlook and PDA email clients. You can order from Systems Solutions by clicking here.