San Mateo, Calif.-based Scalix Corp. on Monday announced Version 11 of its eponymous collaboration software. And Zimbra Inc., also based in San Mateo, released Version 4 of its Zimbra Collaboration Suite (ZCS) with a new tool allowing users to embed fully functional and editable documents and spreadsheets in e-mails.
There have long been alternatives to the triumvirate -- Exchange, IBM's Lotus Notes and Novell Inc.'s GroupWise -- that has dominated the messaging and collaboration market. They include software from Mirapoint Inc., Rockliffe Inc., IPSwitch Inc., U.K.-based Gordano Ltd. and others, according to Michael Osterman, an analyst at Black Diamond, Wash.-based Osterman Research Inc.
But most upstarts, including both proprietary and open-source solutions, have Microsoft in their sights. Microsoft plans to release Exchange 2007 early next year, but only for 64-bit versions of the Windows operating system.
"There are a lot of companies running Exchange 5.5 or Exchange 2000 that are looking to upgrade but don't necessarily need integration with Microsoft SharePoint or Live Communication Server, or want to lower their costs," Osterman said.
One way is to move to a solution such as Scalix, which not only has a community edition that users can try for free, but also lets companies move their employees to a Web browser-based e-mail interface that leverages AJAX to provide desktop-app-like features.
"We have a lot of customers that moved to our Web client because they wanted to get off the Outlook upgrade treadmill," said Glenn Winokaur, Scalix's CEO.
Scalix counts more than 1 million e-mail boxes served by 10,000 e-mail servers among its 400 customers. Founded in 2002, Scalix licensed the former OpenMail software from Hewlett-Packard Co. in 2003, which was then at Version 7. New features in Version 11 include real-time indexing of public and private e-mails for fast searching, a delegation feature that gives administrative assistants access to calendars and e-mails of their bosses or created groups, and Web services interfaces that allow integration with ERP or CRM applications.
Scalix also allows customers to continue using their existing Outlook clients while simply swapping out their e-mail servers.
"This offers the advantage of a fairly seamless migration with no impact on how employees do their daily work," Osterman said.
Scalix's customers include Radisson SAS Hotels and Resorts, which serves about 1,000 e-mail users at 40 hotels in Europe; a Silicon Valley chip maker now in the pilot phase of a project to convert 7,000 Lotus Notes users to Scalix; and a San Francisco Bay area networking vendor that's moving 8,000 e-mail boxes to Scalix.
Zimbra offers both options for users, too, as well as e-mail, contact management and calendaring features. But its new Zimbra Documents feature makes use of AJAX Linking and Embedding (ALE) technology, so users can nest a number of documents within a single e-mail message and then invite their colleagues to edit the information.
"People really like to live in the tools they're comfortable with," said Rob Enderle, an analyst at Enderle Group. Zimbra hopes to succeed where rival IBM failed in getting users to "live and breathe" within its collaboration software, he said.
Three-year-old Zimbra officially launched its first software last October. ZCS 4.0 also features Zimbra Mobile, which provides native over-the-air synchronization between the groupware and a range of mobile devices, including smart phones from Motorola Inc., Nokia Corp. and Palm Inc. Zimbra has yet to offer native support for Research In Motion Ltd.'s popular BlackBerry device, currently relying on partners like Notify Technology Corp. for that capability. But it hopes to make that support available in the future, said Zimbra President and Chief Technology Officer Scott Dietzen.
Zimbra has around 200 paying customers, ranging from small to midsize businesses with 50 seats each to an unnamed Internet service provider that has millions of users, according to Dietzen. Customers the start-up does publicly identify include Firefox Web browser creator Mozilla Corp., Brazilian Internet service provider Orolix and tax services provider H&R Block Inc.
Osterman warned that users who need features beyond the groupware ones offered by Scalix, Zimbra or a third open-source vendor, Open-Xchange Inc., may find themselves saving less money than they expect. "If you need integration with Office or Live Communications Server, or a document repository, or have a very distributed organization, you could lose the cost advantages you were seeking," he said.
Of the three open-source vendors today, "Scalix is the leader," he said. "They've got a pretty decent installed base, in part because they had existing users from the HP OpenMail days. They hit the ground running."