A new open source groupware project launched with the aim of taking on Microsoft Exchange is already well advanced through using seven year-old internet collaboration software.

OpenGroupware.org, dubbed OGo, is based on the Skyrix groupware server developed in 1996. It complements the OpenOffice.org open office suite, plugging a gap in the Linux desktop product set.

But the OpenGroupware organisation is quite separate from Sun Microsystems-sponsored OpenOffice.org. OGo is being sponsored by Fujitsu Siemens and several German IT companies, but not by Sun.

James Governor, principal analyst at Red Monk, told vnunet.com that mail, messaging and shared access to folders is critical to companies of all sizes and absolutely critical to desktop success.

But, unlike office suite software, groupware requires both desktop and server functionality, and Governor believes that the timing and how the software functions will be factors in OGo's success. "This is being launched at an inflexion point for groupware," he said.

German ISP MDLink developed LSOffice, which it later renamed Skyrix 3, with the purpose of adding a collaboration environment to its internet services.

In 2000, a new company called Skyrix Software AG was spun off to concentrate on further development.

The Skyrix groupware server will now become a chargeable enterprise distribution of the OGo software in much the same way as Sun provides StarOffice as its supported version of OpenOffice.

The current version of Skyrix, 4.1, includes some software not available in OGo, including application load balancing and Oracle and Sybase database support.

Initial sponsors are Skyrix Software, which paid for the initial site set-up, Fujitsu Siemens, Pyramid Computer Systeme, MDLink, and Bremen-based IBM reseller Meko^S which is sponsoring OGo on IBM hardware.

Sun currently supports another open source groupware product, Ximian Evolution, as its preferred groupware.

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