OStatic

Maybe it's not a completely counterintuitive concept that giving away a service can yield new business relationships and profits, but undoubtedly, actually doing so is still a leap of faith. It was a chance that Open-Xchange felt was worth taking when it announced it would be giving away its webmail module to qualifying telecom, non-profit, and educational organizations. Almost three months later, Open-Xchange is seeing that giving a little bit can bring good returns.

Open-Xchange's ongoing Webmail4Free promotion offers a free (in speech and cost) webmail module in exchange for marketing the company's open source groupware and mobility modules to the qualifying organization's users and signing a support agreement. The agreement terms vary depending on the organization's size and scope.

It's working out for Open-Xchange, which is reporting a rosier Q1 than expected, and has seen a number of new partnerships and customers thanks to the promotion.

Every sector of the tech industry, be it hardware or software oriented, offering open or closed source solutions, is feeling the economic pinch. Open-Xchange continues to weather the storm with its software as a service (SaaS) open source Exchange server alternative, announcing today it has added four new collaboration partners.

There is no magic formula for success in any business or economy, but Open-Xchange saw its SaaS product, the Open-Xchange Hosting Edition, hit the eight million users mark this year. Though many of Open-Xchange's partners are web hosts and ISPs, there is a real appeal to the SaaS model for businesses with few IT resources who are interested in adopting a groupware solution that's open and easily managed.