Weblicon Technologies AG — a firm that develops and licenses Web-based applications for portals, ISPs, ASPs and telecommunications companies — has released Calmeno, a complete messaging and Personal Information Management (PIM) system for small to medium enterprises that the company said is a “true contender for Exchange.”
Calmeno is the first PIM with full mobile access and over-the-air synchronization for PDAs and SyncML-enabled mobile phones, according to Carsten Brinkschulte, CEO and founder of Weblicon. And in contrast to Microsoft Exchange, Calmeno is based entirely on open industry standards such as IMAP, LDAP and SyncML, runs on industry-strength UNIX operating systems and supports Mac (including Mac OS X) and Linux (as well as Windows) clients. The server software runs on a Sun Solaris system.
Calmeno features wireless access to corporate e-mail, calendar, contacts and tasks “anytime, anywhere and from any device,” Brinkschulte said. Contrary to feature-overloaded competitors, Calmeno provides an extremely easy-to-use interface tailored to small organizations, he added.
You can use a simple browser to access your e-mail, calendar, address book and to-do list. You can also can send SMS messages to contacts in the address book or activate SMS reminders for appointments. The Java client runs on multiple platforms and supports drag & drop like a traditional desktop application. Calmeno has mobile access built-in from the start. For example, you can access your e-mail on the road using any WAP enabled mobile phone.
The popular Outlook and Outlook Express clients are integrated with the Calmeno synchronization software, Brinkschulte said. In addition, Calmeno supports bi-directional synchronization with Palm and PocketPC PDAs. And since Calmeno’s built-in synchronization server is based on the open industry standard SyncML, you can even synchronize their SyncML-enabled mobile phones such as the Ericsson T68 or Nokia 7650 over-the-air, Brinkschulte said.
“Calmeno is easy to install and in contrast to competing products immune to widespread viruses targeted at Microsoft Outlook or attacks against Microsoft Internet Information Server (IIS),” he added. “The complete server can be installed in less than 30 minutes. No client software installation is necessary.”
A test drive is available online. Pricing is US$1,472 for a 5-user license, $2,208 for 10 users, $4,416 for 25 users, and $15,460 for 100 users.