Former SUSE/Novell Channel Vice President Joins Open-Xchange to Run Worldwide Sales Organization

Open-Xchange Inc. announced that
Petra Heinrich, most recently vice president, Partner Sales & Marketing Novell
EMEA, will join the company as worldwide chief sales officer, beginning
October 4.
The company also announced a new director, EMEA Channel Sales: Michael
Herkens.
"We are thrilled to have two strong leaders -- in both open source and
collaboration," said Frank Hoberg, CEO of Open-Xchange. "For Open-Xchange to
compete, we must attract the top technology and channel partners in the world,
and both Michael and Petra know how to get that job done."
Heinrich, 40, has been active in the IT sector for more than 14 years. She
will be responsible for the worldwide execution of direct and indirect sales
at the company.
Heinrich joined SUSE Linux in January 2002, leading the company's
worldwide indirect sales activities, including enterprise software, service
offerings, training and support. After SUSE's acquisition by Novell in January
2004, she integrated both companies' indirect sales activities in EMEA -- and
ran the combined business.
Heinrich began her career at Lotus Development, where she led the Business
Partners, Distribution and Partner Marketing efforts. One of her key
responsibilities was the integration of Lotus Development and IBM Software's
indirect sales channels. Later, as director, Partner Sales at IntraWare AG,
she assumed responsibility for IntraWare's international business development.
"Open-Xchange has a significant opportunity to give customers a state-of-
the-art, yet affordable collaboration suite based on open source," said
Heinrich. "We need to accelerate the strong growth in the U.S. -- while
maintaining our market leadership in Europe. Partners will play a significant
role in this growth -- helping us build impactful solutions for our
customers."
Michael Herkens, 36, recently joined the company as director, EMEA Channel
Sales, focusing on increasing growth in EMEA by building a strong network of
skilled partners available to all segments of customers. Herkens brings more
than 10 years of experience in sales and channel management in the
software/high-tech industry and built both a domestic and EMEA channel for
Lotus and IBM. He most recently worked with Tech Data, directing ongoing
alliances with top value-added resellers (VARs) and systems integrators.
"Open-Xchange has strong momentum in the market and we will link our
partners to these sales opportunities to generate strong incremental business
growth for them," said Herkens. "We are looking for partners who demonstrate
high customer satisfaction standards and a commitment to joint success."

About Open-Xchange
Open-Xchange enables easy migration and integration to an open source
environment -- allowing IT administrators to create and implement killer-apps
without changing existing infrastructure components, i.e. databases, directory
services, message transfer agents, e-mail servers or web-servers. End users
can keep their favorite mail and groupware client -- most often Outlook, but
also open source clients such as Kontact.
Open-Xchange offers a new solution to the age-old problem with its
innovative OXtender. Developed to published internet standards using open
source APIs and interface extensions, OXtender integrates simply and
efficiently into an existing IT infrastructure. If desired, the OXtender can
even be extended by ISVs to provide fax, VoIP, or CRM solutions, for example.
Extension, for SAMBA, Wiki or more exotic uses, is also possible through the
creativity of the Open Source community where OXtender originated.

About Open-Xchange Inc.
Based in Tarrytown, NY, Open-Xchange Inc. (http://www.open-xchange.com) is
the world's leading Linux-based groupware, collaboration, and messaging
provider. Open-Xchange's flagship product, Open-Xchange Server, comes in a
free open source version, OX 0.8, and a commercial version, Open-Xchange 5.0.
Netline Internet Service GmbH, based in Germany, has been developing java-
based, three-tier web applications since 1996 and continues to be the contract
developer of OPEN-XCHANGE. Netline also provides the core collaboration engine
for SUSE LINUX Openexchange.

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