The Raleigh, North Carolina-based Linux distributor will also provide Openexchange with open source technology and services as part of a software partner agreement to ensure Open-Xchange works smoothly with Red Hat’s Enterprise Linux and Application Server products.
In return, Tarrytown, New York-based Openexchange will offer Red Hat/Open-Xchange bundles to both new customers and those who want to migrate from Novell Inc’s SUSE Linux Openexchange Server, which is also based on the Open-Xchange technology.
The deal with Red Hat confirms Openexchange’s independence from Novell, which it continues to partner with. Its technology was previously distributed exclusively through the SUSE Linux Openexchange Server, SLOX, product, which bundled the collaboration functionality with SUSE Linux Enterprise Server.
That relationship changed in August 2004 as plans were put in place to take the underlying technology open source. Novell later decided to discontinue SLOX in favor of reselling Open-Xchange Server, while Openexchange (then known as Netline Internet Service) began work to port the technology to other Linux distributions.
The Novell relationship has now come full circle as Openexchange has also signed a deal with the company that enables it to bundle SUSE Linux Enterprise Server with Open-Xchange.
The two deals mean that Openexchange can now not only offer potential customers the choice of deploying Open-Xchange on Novell SUSE or Red Hat, it can also provide them with the operating systems and services.
Open-Xchange 5 for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 is available now from Openexchange. The product is available as a Small Business Server Edition for between five and 25 users, and Advanced Server Edition for more than 25. Open-Xchange 5 for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server was launched in April.
