Open-Xchange Inc. and VDEL Sign Master Distribution Agreement for Eastern Europe and Russia

TARRYTOWN, NY and VIENNA, Austria, Jan. 18 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Open-Xchange Inc., the leading provider of open source collaboration software, announced today the appointment of VDEL as its master distributor for Eastern Europe and Russia (CER). Headquartered in Vienna, Austria, VDEL will provide value added resellers (VARS) and system integrators throughout Eastern Europe and Russia with Open-Xchange software, services and training.

Open-Xchange Server 5 is the leading messaging and collaborative solution based on open source technology. It provides companies with key messaging functions like email, calendaring, contacts and task management, fully integrated with advanced collaboration features such as document sharing, project tracking, user forums, and a knowledge base. VDEL is known in Eastern Europe and Russia for successfully marketing, distributing and supporting innovative network and security solutions from category leaders Red Hat, Sage, and Hyperion.

"We're looking forward to extending our sales together with VDEL into rapidly growing markets in Eastern Europe and Russia," said Petra Heinrich, chief sales officer, Open-Xchange Inc. "This is an ideal match, as this partnership enables us to provide native language expertise to our customers. Moreover, VDEL has extensive know how and experience in distributing Linux and Open Source as well."

"We believe that Open-Xchange Server is the most advanced and commercially viable Linux-based groupware solution on the market, capable of competing even with the most established proprietary solutions," said Milan Prohaska, managing director, VDEL. "This agreement enables us to quickly offer our customers affordable and easy-to-use collaboration solutions."

"Open-Xchange Server is a powerful extension for customers' Linux environments and it perfectly works with our Red Hat Enterprise Server and Application Server. Therefore we are delighted about this relationship as it adds more value for customers and partners in this market place," said Werner Knoblich, VP EMEA, Red Hat.

Open-Xchange has customers in more than 50 countries since its launch in April 2005. Sales growth is particularly strong in Germany, the United States and France. To date, Open-Xchange has recruited 250 value-added resellers in 40 countries.

To get a first look, Open-Xchange offers a free, fully functional "Live-CD" of Open-Xchange Server 5 that gives users a cost-free, risk-free way to test all the features of the world's leading open source alternative to Microsoft Exchange. The Live-CD contains a complete edition of Open-Xchange Server 5 that boots directly from the CD-ROM, ensuring that the host computer is not modified in any way. The Live-CD can be downloaded from http://www.open-xchange.com/live. Also available is a first look online demo at http://www.open-xchange.com/tryfirst/. About Open-Xchange Server

Open-Xchange Server is one of the most active and fastest growing open source projects to date. Launched in August 2004, Open-Xchange Server now ranks #8 out of 303 groupware projects on freshmeat.net website, #1 in document repositories, #4 in handhelds, and overall #229 out of 39,673 listed projects. The Open-Xchange community website, http://www.open-xchange.org, is visited by 130,000 unique visitors each month, the GPL version of Open-Xchange Server is downloaded more than 9,000 times each month.

Open-Xchange Server 5, the commercial product launched in April 2005, is engineered for ease of installation, migration, administration, integration and use. It interoperates with virtually all web browsers and important proprietary and open source rich clients. Open-Xchange Server supports the two leading Enterprise Linux distributions, Red Hat and SUSE. Innovative connectors, OXtenders, enhance customer flexibility by using open standard APIs to integrate existing IT infrastructures, or even extend capabilities to fax, VoIP, or CRM solutions.

Open-Xchange Server 5, Advanced Server Edition (one server and 25 named users), is available at http://www.open-xchange.com and through select partners for EUR / $ 850. The package includes a one-year subscription to the Open-Xchange Maintenance Portal, installation and administration interfaces, initial installation support, as well as Outlook and Palm connectors. Annual maintenance subscription fee for additional clients is EUR / $25 per named user. About Open-Xchange Inc.

Open-Xchange Inc. delivers reliable and scalable messaging and advanced collaboration solutions. Its flagship product, Open-Xchange Server, is the market-leading advanced collaboration server that combines best-of-breed open source software with commercial software add-ons and connectors. Open-Xchange Server is among the Top 250 most popular and most active open source projects in the world today. Open-Xchange Inc. is based in Tarrytown, NY, with research & development and operations concentrated in Olpe and Nuremberg, Germany. For more information, please visit http://www.open-xchange.com About VDEL GmbH

VDEL GmbH, headquartered in Vienna Austria, is the leading IT Services Distribution company in Central Europe, Eastern Europe and Russia. VDEL delivers IT services, using the most advanced new technology methods, include 24 by 7 product implementation and configuration support, native language translation and localization including maintenance of updates and upgrades, education and hands-on training, certification, marketing and sales support. VDEL provides and distributes these and other related services through our local value-added partner network that helps customers increase their productivity by selecting the right vendor and open source products. For more information, please visit http://www.vdel.com