Collax puts Web face on application management

Linux vendor Collax wants use the Web interface it has built for managing small-business servers to manage applications from other vendors too.

Collax has developed scripts to automate the most frequently performed tasks in administrating file, print, and mail functions on a Linux workgroup server, and wrapped them in a multilingual Web interface that means there’s no need to visit the Linux command line. It has also applied the same principles to management of the Open-Xchange open source workgroup collaboration software, bundled with some of its products, so new user accounts can be created with a few clicks while Collax’s scripts take care of all the details.

Now Collax wants to turn these tools, which it is exhibiting at the Cebit trade show, into a single management console for other applications used by small and medium-size businesses.

“We are currently opening the code of the server to run other applications on top,” said Sebastian Siegert, channel sales manager.

“Today, you can already run traditional LAMP (Linux-Apache-MySQL-PHP) application on top, and we are currently building a software development kit so other companies can hook their admin systems into our front end,” he added.

At a nearby stand, a representative of open source ERP (enterprise resource planning) vendor Pentaprise said his company was one of those considering using Collax’s interface.

Collax sells its three products Business Server, Open-Xchange Server, and Security Gateway, either as appliances or as software only, with a support service. Pricing depends on the number of users, from 10 users up to 250. Companies wanting to check out Collax’s software without buying a license can download a free five-user version of the packages.

Cebit, at the fair ground in Hanover, Germany, runs through Wednesday.