Oct 17, 2008 : OpenXchange Goes Massively Mobile

📅 October 17, 2008 - A new collaboration has brought open-source, collaboration capability to more than 1.5 billion mobile handsets, providing push email and cloud-based mobile synchronization as a Software as a Service offering.


According to a joint announcement this week, Open source software developer Open-Xchange (open-xchange.com) and "mobile 2.0 messaging" provider Funambol (funambol.com) have partnered to provide advanced capabilities to most mobile handsets including the iPhone, the Android platform, and Windows Mobile and BlackBerry devices. In June, Open-Xchange retooled its services for iPhone users, but now, these capabilities are extended to virtually all Internet-enabled mobile phones.

The companies say customers will be able to easily receive push email and sync with contacts, calendar and other information on their desktops using Open-Xchange's open-source collaboration software combined with Funambol's "connector for Open-Xchange Hosting Edition" which enables the new mobile capabilities. Open-Xchange Hosting Edition offers the full set of personal information manager functions including email, calendaring, contacts and task management, and also more advanced groupware features such as Documail and Smart Document Sharing via the Internet cloud.

"After thoroughly researching the market, the combination of Open-Xchange and Funambol resonated as the solution we were looking for," 1&1 Internet (1and1.co.uk) chief executive officer Oliver Mauss said in a statement. "We believe in the success of Software as a Service, especially at small and medium-sized businesses. As Open-Xchange and Funambol could be seamlessly integrated into our open source infrastructure at 1&1, we will continue to offer innovative products and services at disruptive pricing."

Over the past 12 months, 1&1 has deployed its Open-Xchange and Funambol-based 1&1 MailXchange, a hosted business email and collaboration service in the US and Germany. In late September, launched 1&1 MailXchange in the UK.

"The tandem of Open-Xchange Hosting Edition and Funambol provides an open source Mobile'We' for the rest of us," Funambol CEO Fabrizio Capobianco said in a statement. "Beyond just working on the iPhone, it also supports the most popular smart phones, including the BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, and Android, and common feature phones. This enables everyone in the workplace to have push email and mobile sync for low cost."

Redwood City, California-based Funambol specializes in open source push email and mobile sync for the mass market, boasting open-source software downloads of more than 2.5 million by 50,000 developers and in more than 200 countries. The commercial version of Funambol has been deployed at service providers, mobile operators, portals, device manufacturers and ISVs including AOL (aol.com), Earthlink (earthlink.net 👉 Total Reviews: 6
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