Long history of open source Exchange rival

The open source groupware project OpenGroupware.org, dubbed OGo, is already well advanced, being a relaunch of seven-year-old internet collaboration software.

Targeted at products such as Microsoft Exchange, Lotus Notes and Novell Groupwise, the OGo free groupware is based on the Skyrix groupware server, originally called LSOffice, begun in 1996.

This means much of the functionality needed to produce a viable groupware competitor is already in place.

The new effort said it is complementary to, but separate from, open office suite producer OpenOffice.org, which is sponsored by Sun.

German internet service provider MDLink, founded in 1994, developed LSOffice (which it later renamed as Skyrix 3). Its aim was to extend its own internet services with a collaboration environment.

In 2000, a new company called Skyrix Software was spun off to concentrate on further development. The current version is 4.1.

OGo said the Skyrix groupware server will now become "an enterprise distribution of the OpenGroupware.org software".

It includes some software not available in OGo, including application load balancing and Oracle and Sybase database support.

Initial sponsors are Skyrix, who paid for the whole initial set-up; Fujitsu Siemens; Pyramid Computer Systeme; Bremen-based IBM reseller Mekoˆs, which is sponsoring OGo on IBM hardware; and MDLink.

OGo is written in Objective-C and includes XML interfaces.