Messaging & Collaboration Blog

SharePoint Technology Conference 2009

Mojave Media Group — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 03:52:54 GMT

One of the channel writers compiled an interesting list of conferences that pertain to messaging and collaboration products or industries. Inevitably, there are going to be some missing and I think the SharePoint Technology Conference 2009 in Burlingame, CA from January 27-29, 2009 is a good example.

The SharePoint Technology Conference, near the San Francisco airport, provides a balance of content for IT Professionals, IT Managers, and Developers.

Open-Xchange Gets New Life, Funding

Mojave Media Group — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 02:55:21 GMT

In a somewhat challenging and uncertain economic environment, Open-Xchange has been able to secure an additional $9 million US in financing to produce a more competitive version of its messaging and collaboration product.

Open-Xchange markets itself as an Open Source alternative to Microsoft Exchange Server. It offers server, appliance and hosting editions and claims to be the most popular groupware solution for the Linux platform. Open-Xchange also uses several mechanisms to meet the demands of mobile customers. It is a direct competitor to Exchange, Zimbra, Scalix et al.

OpenOffice 3.0 Released

Mojave Media Group — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 05:17:45 GMT

Longtime Open Source Microsoft-Office-Wannabe OpenOffice has released an updated version. Now at 3.0, OpenOffice provides most of the functionality of more expensive Office application suites. It is said that 80% of Microsoft Word users actually only use 20% of the application. If that is the case, then there really is a market out there for very functional competitive products like an OpenOffice.

One of the shortcomings of OpenOffice is the lack of an E-mail and Personal Information Manager (PIM) client such as Microsoft Outlook. It also does not have solid integration with a set of secondary applications, like a Visio or OneNote or InfoPath. But ultimately, the components of OpenOffice are as solid as ever and truly represent an option in the competitive Office application market. We will do a review of OpenOffice 3.0 in the near future.

It seems at this time, OpenOffice is having website issues supposedly from the demand for their newest version.

Cisco Reaches Agreement to Buy Jabber

Mojave Media Group — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 17:14:23 GMT

Cisco Systems continues to build their collaboration offerings announcing an agreement to acquire privately held Jabber.

Jabber produces enterprise sinstant messaging and presence applications, including a turnkey appliance to simplify Enterprise IM deployments.

Along with recent acquisitions of WebEx and PostPath, this annoucement brings an impressive messaging and collaboration portfolio to Cisco

Cisco Buys PostPath for $215m US

Mojave Media Group — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 16:33:48 GMT

There are, or rather were, several products marketing themselves as Exchange Server replacements that really have become media darlings in the open source and Linux communities. These include Scalix, Zimbra, OpenXChange, PostPath, and even Axigen (I am doing a review of Axigen which will be posted in this channel in September).

Well Cisco has just acquired PostPath for $215 million US. Last year, Yahoo! purchased popular startup Zimbra. Work on the current version of Zimbra has continued at Yahoo!, but how Zimbra will evolve as a result of the acquisition is unknown. This is especially true with threats of a Microsoft merger, too.

Do these acquisitions validate the value and performance of these alternative messaging and collaboration solutions or do they add to insecurities that the products may not be around in their current form for the long term?

A Brief History...

Mojave Media Group — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 06:56:59 GMT

In support of ongoing articles, we are creating a set of reference articles for the Messaging and Collaboration space entitled "A Brief History of....". We will have several such articles covering protocols, trends, and applications. The first Brief History article summarized the life of Microsoft Outlook. As the number of these articles grows, we may add a directory article listing the topics and products covered by this template.

Microsoft Outlook 2007 Tips Articles

Mojave Media Group — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 09:06:56 GMT

We have started a series of Tips and Tricks for the most used client messaging application in business today - Microsoft Outlook. The first article for this series is called Outlook 2007 Tip #1 - New E-mail Account Configuration. Some tips may be simple while others more unique, but all will be helpful.

We will expand this series to other messaging and collaboration products if the response is satisfactory.

Happy Communicating!

Welcome to the Messaging and Collaboration Channel!

Mojave Media Group — Thu, 29 May 2008 22:36:18 GMT

Communication options are both expanding and converging in the enterprise. SMS, instant messaging, unified communications, VoIP, Social Networking and of course good old e-mail are critical applications for many enterprises. In most cases, these options must work well together.

This channel is dedicated to assembling varied and relevant content articles on messaging and collaboration products, trends, and solutions.

William Lefkovics, BSc, MCSE, A+

Managing Editor, Messaging and Collaboration