Datrix Solutions last month launched Scalix, which, it says, is an enterprise-ready e-mail and calendaring client built especially for Linux.

"Based on Linux and Open Systems Architecture, the Scalix platform represents a blend of enterprise-class technology. Scalix is built upon HP"s OpenMail technology which it licensed from Hewlett-Packard," says Wayne Smith, MD of Datrix Solutions.

Companies have reached a stage where e-mail is no longer a "nice to have" option, but now a must have, mission-critical part of business operations. In fact, research conducted by the Meta Group revealed that 80 percent of respondents said that e-mail is more valuable than the telephone for business communications. Further research showed that 74 percent of users considered being without e-mail more of a hardship than being without a telephone.

"At the same time enterprises are realising that Linux is a viable and cheaper alternative to Microsoft. CIOs and administrators want to spend as little money as possible, and, at the same time, want a scalable, robust and enterprise-ready mail server that is fully compatible with Microsoft and other vendor"s mail clients," says Smith. "We feel that Scalix offers just that."

One of the biggest problems organisations face today is security. Research carried out by Osterman Research says that organisations are spending about 20 percent of e-mail budgets on anti-spam and anti-virus solutions. "Security has fuelled the deployment of Linux and the recent surge in adoption of Mozilla and Firefox browsers just goes to show that users want an alternative to Microsoft on their desktops. Scalix now lets companies deploy a secure Linux e-mail solution in their server rooms," he says.

Another problem that companies face is vendor lock-in. For example, companies using Microsoft"s Exchange 5.5 and wanting to upgrade to a newer version would have to implement things such as Microsoft"s Active Directory and many other Microsoft-specific programs. Basically this creates a vendor-specific ecosystem that will not interoperate well with data centre infrastructure tools, such as back-up tools and procedures from other vendors. "Scalix will run on whatever infrastructure a company has, and will work with most archiving servers," says Smith.

"Additionally, Scalix is installed and maintained by Datrix Solutions, thus the administrator is freed up to concentrate on other administrative tasks," he says.

Companies are not charged for the implementation of Scalix per se, billing is rather based on the number of mailboxes set up on the server.

"Scalix is suitable for just about any company with more than 100 users," concludes Smith. "No additional training is required as users continue to use the current mail client, and will probably not even know that any changes have been made to the mail server." ."