Start-Up ownCloud Debuts Commercial Offering

ownCloud Inc., the commercial entity behind the open source enterprise file sync and share project, launched commercial offerings based on Version 3 of the community edition, bringing flexibility and security to the file sync and share market.

ownCloud 2012 Business and Enterprise editions include anytime, any
device access to files – introducing sync clients for Linux and Windows,
as well as mobile apps for Android and iOS. The commercial offerings
also extend the capabilities of the community edition by adding easier management, support and maintenance subscriptions, plug-ins and commercial licenses.

With more than 400,000 users (and growing rapidly) of the community
edition, ownCloud offers the ease-of-use of Dropbox with more
flexibility and security. Users can run their own file sync and share
services on their own hardware and storage, use popular public hosting
and storage offerings, or both. Because it’s open source, ownCloud
offers no vendor lock in, and pulls in innovative features from the
community.

"For more than two years now, ownCloud has been giving corporate IT
managers the ability to offer their users easy – and secure – access to
corporate data, while leveraging their existing infrastructure as the
back end," said Markus Rex, founder and CEO, ownCloud. "These new offerings give end users easy-to-use sync clients and mobile apps, and give IT commercial support."

"File synchronization across desktops and mobile devices of
individual users and groups is a white-hot market. It is also a market
that epitomizes the ‘consumerization of IT’ in the enterprise. Adoption
of iPads and other devices happened faster – and often by an
organization’s most senior executives – than IT was prepared for, and,
in many cases, IT hasn’t been able to meet end-user requirements to make
these devices truly usable for work," said Simon Robinson, Simon Robinson, research director at 451 Research. "Hence,
the Mobile File Sharing and Synch Platforms market is shaping up to be
an incredibly active and extremely disruptive one in the foreseeable
future as IT finds solutions that give users what they want, while at
the same time securing corporate data."

About ownCloud Business and ownCloud Enterprise

• ownCloud Business
  extends the core ownCloud Community 3 infrastructure and adds
  maintenance and support, an AGPL license, support for open source
  plug-ins.
• ownCloud Enterprise adds a commercial license, a management console for easy deployment and management and enablement of commercial plug-ins.

Availability and pricing
Both versions are available. Pricing for ownCloud Business starts at
$999 a year ($100 a month) for up to 50 users. ownCloud Enterprise
starts at $15,000 a year (or $1,500 a month) for up to 250 users.

ownCloud is also available through partners around the world.

Last week, the company announced a partner program
that drew more than a dozen premium partners:

• Ancud IT, provider of open source solutions – as systems integrator, consultant and software developer.
• B1 Systems,
  offering individual advice, professional consulting, specific
  development, continuous support and qualified training for medium-sized
  and major enterprises from industry, commerce and the services sector as
  well as for government authorities.
• COCONET-US:
  supports the needs of academic institutions, with a focus on K-12, both
  private and public, enabling new teaching methods, collaborative
  sharing amongst faculty and expanded reach to students all over the
  world.
• dass IT,
  specializing in tailor-made open source solutions with a focus on
  high-available Linux systems, systems management and open source backup
  solutions.
• Eight Systems, provides ‘infinite solutions’ – the eternal search for the best solution in computing, whether in person or in the cloud.
• eRacks
  provides high-performance, competitively-priced open source rackmount
  servers, desktop computers, as well as an array of services including
  open source enterprise migration, security, and network architecture
  design.
• Hostserver GmbH
  is a specialist for sophisticated and individual managed hosting
  solutions, as well as for domain and name service. All key services are
  certified under ISO 9001:2008.
• Housingcenter,
  provider of infrastructure, cloud and managed services in Benelux with
  datacenters and a datacenter-redundant cloud platform operating from 3
  datacenters in Belgium.
• InTech Solutions
  offers an array of information technology solutions, including the
  traditional services such as file/print/email/database implementations,
  as well as services in some technologies such as, virtualization (server
  and desktop), cloud based computing (ITaaS), software as a service
  (SaaS), and corporate based social networking implementations.
• Kangaroot has been Belgium’s number one Linux and open source service provider since 2000.
• Open Software Solutions is an independent solution partner for organizational software.
• Overt Software Solutions‘
  initiatives allow organizations to adopt cloud computing and network
  edge consolidation to maximize application availability and minimize
  costs within the public and private IT sectors.
• Senat is an information technology consultancy focused on
  delivering cost effective information system solutions for SMBs to
  enterprises and government agencies.
• Strictcloud provides a highly integrated series of professional services that include consulting, governance and security.

ownCloud also previously announced a partnership with Univention.

Read also:
Start-Up’s Profile: ownCloud
Will offer commercial version of open source software to sync files.