SYDNEY, Australia -- 28 May 2003 -- Custom Technology today launched Samsung Contact's "Exchange on Linux & UNIX" campaign. Clearly positioning Samsung Contact as a key enabler for enterprises implementing Windows Server to Linux migration strategies.

"Many businesses are facing a costly migration from Exchange 5.5 to Exchange 2000 or 2003", said Gordon Hubbard, Managing Director, Custom Technology. "For most this will mean expensive network infrastructure changes, many will be forced to upgrade from ageing NT4 servers and fully implement Active Directory - a move that will lock them into a high cost Microsoft centric future. The smart alternative is to move to a flexible lower cost infrastructure based on Linux, UNIX where applicable, and Samsung Contact."

Businesses moving to Samsung Contact can expect to almost halve their Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) according to independent analysis by Ferris Research. Ferris found that the typical cost over 3 years of Samsung Contact at A$10.77 per user per month is nearly half that of Microsoft Exchange® at A$20. (Source: Ferris, The Cost of Notes, Exchange, and Samsung Contact, White Paper, August 2002***).

"Keeping Outlook for collaboration is a key feature of Contact for organisations wishing to minimise retraining", said Hubbard. Samsung Contact allows organisations to keep Outlook® or choose to eliminate Outlook® if they wish. Samsung Contact integrates directly with Outlook®  (2002 (Office XP), 2000 and 98), even for collaboration, so users won't notice any significant difference. Alternatively organisations moving to OpenOffice.org, StarOffice®, Corel WordPerfect® Office or other alternative "Office" software will appreciate the low cost Outlook-like Samsung Contact 'native' Client running on Windows or Linux desktops, or via a Web browser. Contact also supports a broad range of standard IMAP/POP clients.

To help busy business managers and IT professionals quickly evaluate the possibilities Custom Technology has released the "Top 10 Reasons to exchange your messaging server for Samsung Contact" available online at http://www.customtech.com.au/reasonsToBuy.pdf

Samsung Contact Server runs on Red Hat Linux, Red Hat Linux Advanced Server 2.1, SuSE Linux Enterprise Server, Sun Solaris or HP-UX.

Availability

Custom Technology is shipping Samsung Contact 8.0.1 Server, 8.0.2 MAPI (Outlook support) and 8.0.0 Native & Web Clients now. A FREE trial CD is available that allows unlimited users for a 45 day trial period and also includes a FREE downloadable 5 user server license.

The current historically favourable exchange rate has recently permitted a drop in pricing across the Samsung Contact range of over 10%. So now is a great time to buy Contact! For small quantities the list price is A$121.00 (incl. GST) per mailbox with discounts for volume.

***The White Papers are available from links on the PRODUCTS page at http://www.customtech.com.au
US$ figures in white papers converted to A$ at an exchange rate of 0.65.

About Custom Technology Australia

Custom Technology Australia Pty Ltd provides value added product distribution, technical support, integration and development services for Open Systems including Linux and UNIX. Our vision is to deliver Open Systems that provide real competitive advantage to our business partners. Custom Technology is the Samsung SDS Certified Distributor for Samsung Contact in Australia. Visit Custom Technology at http://www.customtech.com.au

About Samsung Contact

Samsung Contact is an email server product, offering the lowest total cost of ownership, extreme scalability and solid reliability to email desktop clients. Amongst the clients supported is Microsoft Outlook, including the "collaboration" features (such as shared calendars, delegation and offline folders) which are otherwise only accessible when using a Microsoft server. Customers can easily migrate to Samsung Contact from leading email products such as Microsoft Exchange, Lotus Domino and OpenMail. The product has been developed following Samsung's win of perpetual licensing rights over Hewlett-Packard's highly successful OpenMail technology. Investment and commitment to the roadmap will continue to build on the success of OpenMail, and expectations are that Samsung Contact will become the market leader in the field of seamless unified communications. Future development will also encompass technologies such as J2EE and XML. For more information, please visit their website at http://www.samsungcontact.com.

About Samsung SDS

Samsung SDS Korea, led by CEO Mr Hong Ki Kim, delivers packaged solutions, professional services, global marketing and Internet-focused services and solutions. The company is the leading systems integration, systems management and e-business company in Korea, employing 6,500 people worldwide and generating $1.3 billion (US) in revenues. It has been ranked 38th in Software 500, a survey of software companies around the world by a globally recognised software magazine. For more information, please visit their website at http://www.sds.samsung.com.
 

Press Contact
Gordon Hubbard
Managing Director
gordon@customtech.com.au
Tel: 02 9659 9590
Fax: 02 9659 9510

OpenMail is a registered trademark of the Hewlett-Packard Company in the USA, the UK and other countries.
® Microsoft Exchange and Microsoft Outlook are registered trademarks of the Microsoft Corporation. ® Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds. ® Unix is used as a generic term covering all versions of the UNIX® operating system. UNIX is a registered trademark in the United States and other countries, licensed exclusively through The Open Group. All other products, brands or company names herein may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners.