MessageWire, and its sister company Solar VPS, are making Open-Xchange business-class open source e-mail and collaboration software available to their customers and partners as a less expensive alternative to the established Microsoft Exchange and Sharepoint offering.

MessageWire, established in 2008, provides hosted e-mail and collaboration solutions to small- and medium-size businesses (SMBs), as well as partners worldwide. Solar VPS, formed in 2005, provides SMBs with cost-effective, efficient and sustainable hosting solutions.

"Open-Xchange gives us an alternative high-quality offering that we can offer at approximately half the cost of hosted Microsoft collaboration software," said Ross Brouse, CEO of MessageWire and Solar VPS. "We provide our customers with hosted e-mail, anti-spam, archiving and compliance, as well as support for mobile access which, of course, is up and available 24x7 to meet their needs. Now, they'll have a choice of our Microsoft branded offering, or Open-Xchange alternative which will be especially attractive in price sensitive situations."

As a partner and user of Parallels Automation software, MessageWire and Solar VPS are able to easily add Open-Xchange software and easily integrate it into the existing infrastructure without changing the existing authentication, user setup, system administration, provisioning and billing systems. Open-Xchange Hosting Edition is the only groupware specifically designed to meet the needs of SaaS (Software as a Service) providers.

"We believe MessageWire and Solar VPS gain competitive advantage and have the opportunity to significantly grow profitability," said Rafael Laguna, CEO of Open-Xchange. "In addition, adding the Open-Xchange alternative can help solidify relationships with existing customers, increase average revenue per user and attract new customers, as well."

Open-Xchange software integrates e-mail, calendar, contact and task management with advanced groupware features such as information management and document sharing. Users' productivity is enhanced through unique teamwork features, like team view, single-password document sharing, and shared calendars, contacts, tasks and documents. With mobility support, users can have access to their data anywhere, anytime and with virtually any device.