OpenGroupware.org (OGo) is a sister project of the OpenOffice.org open source productivity suite initiative, and the OGo group says its software will integrate with OpenOffice.org applications and other Linux and Windows groupware clients. However, the two projects, though complementary, are separate communities, and OGo isn't sponsored by Sun.

The group describes its mission as follows: "To create, as a community, the leading open source groupware server to integrate with the leading open source office suite products and all the leading groupware clients running across all major platforms, and to provide access to all functionality and data through open XML-based interfaces and APIs. "

It describes the software as a mixture of Microsoft Exchange and Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server, but adds that the focus is on groupware and collaboration rather than messaging. Companies are encouraged to use existing open source mail servers for messaging; OpenGroupware.org explains that projects such as Cyrus, Courier, Washington IMAP, and Apache James can handle messaging tasks. The group says the OGo groupware reference server services and IMAP4 server services are complementary.

The group also has no plans to focus on an open source groupware client. Instead, it will support other such projects and work to integrate them with OpenGroupware.org using standard protocols.

Targeting Exchange, finding the open source niche

Open source software isn't exactly new to the collaboration market -- at least the messaging part of that space -- says Jeff Ubois, a consulting analyst with Ferris Research, which specializes in messaging and collaboration technologies.

"Most of the mail servers on the Net for a long time were open source," he explains. "Sendmail was an open source product, and for a lot of ISPs, Sendmail is still the way to go. ... You can make an argument that open source is already playing a huge role in the way things work now, and that [OGo] is an extension that brings it closer to end-user organizations."

How well OGo competes with existing groupware products will depend on several factors.

The IT industry seems to agree that the software is aimed at Microsoft Exchange more than any other product, just as Linux competes most directly with Windows and OpenOffice competes with Microsoft Office. What are the chances that a company using Exchange, or even other groupware platforms such as IBM Lotus Domino and Novell GroupWise, might ditch their proprietary software for OGo?

"In most organizations where they've already rolled out IBM Lotus Notes, Novell GroupWise, or Microsoft Exchange, I think it would be hard for people to want to replace that," Ubois says. "After you install one of those mail systems, people don't tend to move very much unless there's something like a corporate merger that forces them to do so."

OGo, then, will probably fare better in companies that haven't installed anything yet. Even then, the server will probably find adopters in niche areas. Ubois suggests the software might do well in places outside the United States where open source in general is succeeding, such as Germany and South America, where governments are using and promoting open source software. Companies that have adopted OpenOffice would be logical candidates, too, he says.

Another factor is support. When a company buys a product from a vendor such as Microsoft, it has a place to go for answers to problems it encounters using the product. Selling proprietary software means you have to back it up with support services. Free, "as-is" open source software can present a dilemma: Should companies pay the money, sometimes a lot of it, to ensure the software is supported, or do they avoid licensing costs and stake their business data and operations on free software? If they go open source, where do system administrators turn for help? Ubois says the support issue isn't as dire as one might think.

"For a lot of people, I think the support for open source is very good," Ubois says. "You can post something to an active group and get an answer. ... Relying on the user community seems to be a pretty effective means of tech support."

However, he says, that support structure presents a "chicken-and-egg" problem: You can get good support from other users of the software, but for such a self-sustaining community to exist, there has to be a large number of people who have enough confidence in the software to use it.

Some members of the IT community say OpenGroupware.org should focus on finding partners who can help promote and distribute the software.

Platform support, download

The software works on Intel-based GNU/Linux and SPARC/Solaris. There are plans to port it to the IBM iSeries platform.

You can get the download at http://www.opengroupware.org.