Open-Xchange, a provider of real-time communication and collaboration software that can run on existing cloud and telecom infrastructures, has announced the acquisition of Dovecot. Merging the companies and products will provide ISPs with a single point of contact and an integrated technology for running highly scalable email, collaboration, office productivity and real-time communications solutions.
Dovecot has 2.9 million servers installed, “accounting for 57 per cent market share of all active IMAP servers” – and it would be growing by 3-4 per cent every year. Open-Xchange has sold 130 million seats of its OX App Suite, which provides productivity applications for mail, collaboration, office productivity and real-time communications in an integrated environment.
Under the terms of the merger, Dovecot has become a subsidiary of Open-Xchange. The three owners and founders of Dovecot – Timo Sirainen, Mikko Linnamäki and Markku Kenttä – have become shareholders of Open-Xchange AG, providing continuity, tighter integration and therefore the ability to offer more advanced combined solutions.
“When I started the Dovecot open source project 12 years ago, I didn’t dare dream that it would become the world’s most popular email server software,” said Timo Sirainen, founder of Dovecot. “The merger with Open-Xchange provides us with the financial and organizational background to scale our operations. This allows us to better manage large service provider installations, as we’ve already done together in the past. Both Open-Xchange and Dovecot live and breathe open source, so we will continue to value the support and contributions of the open source community by providing free Dovecot releases.”
Germany, Finland, U.S.
Founded in 2005, Open-Xchange is privately owned with headquarters in Nuremberg, Germany, and offices in Hamburg and Olpe, Germany, Helsinki, Finland and Palo Alto, California.
“The two companies have long shared a vision to promote secure, robust messaging and collaboration platforms and this merger allows us to concert our efforts in rebuilding trust in the Internet,” said Rafael Laguna, CEO of Open-Xchange. “Our shared heritage also means we have many shared customers and can now offer an even better, more simplified service through a single integrated team.”
