Summary: Open-Xchange introduced a new deployment model for the App Suite messaging and collaboration platform called OX-as-a-Service.
Details: OX-as-a-Service is a hosted version of the OX App Suite run in third party data centres and managed by Open-Xchange. We confirmed with OX that the service will start in two data centres: one in Germany and one in the US. The German data centre is in Hamburg. In the US OX will partner with Hostway and house the service in a data centre in Chicago. OX will host and manage the service and customers can opt out whenever they want and host on their own if they wish.
New deployment model about options: The offering is for hosters, service providers and telcos that do not want to build out infrastructure and simply sell the service directly to customers. This will reduce time to market and lower upfront investment. They can consume in an opex model and avoid a capex outlay.
Partners: Telecom Italia Digital Solutions is one of the first partners for OX-as-a-Service. It will sell the service hosted out of the Hamburg, Germany data centre. Telecom Italia us using Parallels Automation as its delivery platform.
Angle: This is about knocking down barriers and making it easier for hosters and service providers to jump into this offering. The sales cycle can often be long and the technical implementation stage takes time and energy as well. OX is taking this out of the equation and reducing risk. OX is obviously highly qualified to run the service and this ultimately makes it an on-boarding tool. Hosters can continue to learn how to run the service while they are reselling it and gain the expertise over time rather than rushing into it. This makes even more sense for telcos and integrators that have very limited infrastructure delivery capabilities and resources. The model also makes sense for hosters that are probably concerned with using email and collaboration tools to build relationships with customers and sell value-add on top.
*Disclosure: Open-Xchange is a Structure Research subscriber.