SynApps The Open Source and Gadget blog

Apple has done it. They have entered the hosted collaboration market, joining Google, Microsoft and Yahoo. With the most exciting technology amongst all the clients out there (the iPhone. And Mac Books. And ... yea, I am a fan. Kick me!), probably the most advanced - read deeply integrated into OS X, consistent and quite mature - user interface (Apple Mail, Addressbook and calendaring apps), and enough money to make it work, Apple has become yet another reason for hosters and telcos to look for other solutions, fast!

Another part of their announcement is going to keep RIM out of bed. Apple will make notification of devices a part of the platform. And this platform is a long way from being as expensive as the Blackberry. And the devices (iPhone) are a lot more generic. Yes, the keyboard in Blackberries is a plus, I still have to meet somebody who can type on that touchscreen based nightmare. But people are people. And to not look at their pictures, and to not look at movies, and to not listen to their music in a cool way is only going to stop a minority from running away from RIM now that the same functionality can now be had cheaper, with a lot more style, and whats more important, diversity of useful applications.

At the same time, Apple has raised the bar for Open-Xchange quite a bit. Zimbra was flashy and cool and whatnot, but not really groundbreaking. With Apple some 30 years in GUI design have become the default level of expectations in our market. And rightfully so.

Not to get too excited: Open-Xchange is everything to Apple what they are to the market. We are a bit different. We are much cheaper. We are much more versatile. And we can of course be as pretty: we integrate nicely with OS X and the iPhone. Even better still: Open-Xchange enables mobile.me users to go beyond the PIM it is and work in groups, inside and outside of mobile.me, inside and outside of Google, ... always happy to help!

And, oh, yes: we are INDEPENDENT. No, Mr. Asay, we are not part of a service provider, Open-Xchange is still a good match for hosters and telcos ...

And we make sure our partners and customers can run their businesses without worrying about who is going to take us out of the market tomorrow. Open-Xchange is open source and readily available for everybody who cares.
And hosters and telcos do care to not hand off their customers to service behemoths like Google or Yahoo. And users should care about Google leveraging their communication for marketing. And users should care about their data can only potentially be pryed away from this closed type of vendors with a lot of effort. If at all.

So what remains to be said is thanks for keeping us all on our toes, Steve :)