Open-Xchange, a disruptive open source software company, has announced the launch of OX Documents, a cloud-based office productivity suite, featuring OX Text, an in-browser word processing tool. OX Text offers direct editing capabilities for Microsoft Word .docx files and OpenOffice or LibreOffice .odt files. Multiple users can view and edit the same document in real time by sharing editor’s rights held by a single user at a given time, allowing for structured collaboration. OX Documents also provides viewing support for all major file formats.

A pioneering feature of OX Text is non-destructive support of Microsoft Office and OpenOffice or LibreOffice file formats. XML-based documents can be seamlessly read, edited and saved back to the original format at a level of quality and fidelity previously unavailable with browser-based text editors. OX Text will be joined by Presentation and Spreadsheet to complete the OX Documents Suite later in 2013.

Developed by key members of the original OpenOffice development team as a web-based successor of OpenOffice, OX Text benefits from over 200 years of combined experience in providing professional standard productivity software. Driven by a desire to radically transform productivity software, these developers joined Open-Xchange early in 2012 to engineer a cloud-based office suite from scratch using state-of-the-art HTML5 and Java Script technology.

Speaking at the announcement of OX Documents at World Hosting Days in Rust, Germany, Rafael Laguna, Open-Xchange CEO said: “A crucial factor in the development of OX Text was not to introduce yet another proprietary file format to further add to the productivity compatibility jungle. Existing cloud-based tools insist that you adopt their format before you can begin the edit process that creates ugly conversion artifacts, putting a brake on fast adoption of collaboration in the cloud.

“Perhaps most importantly it always keeps the original document format by not attempting to alter or convert non-compatible native formatting features. This means that when you reopen the document in Word it is formatted as originally intended, without any alterations, thus preventing any format corruption, data loss or errors.”

OX Documents is available separately and as an extension on the functionality of OX App Suite, a web-based personal desktop, providing tools for easy management of email, calendar, documents and social network feeds. Developed by placing responsive design at its core, the OX App Suite also takes full advantage of HTML5 to deliver a consistent user experience, across a range of devices.

“Adding office productivity to the email and collaboration capabilities of OX App Suite makes sense for OX App Suite users who often need to create, share and work together beyond email and without the hassle of breaking file formats,” said Liam Eagle, analyst at 451 Research. “Addressing the headaches of version control and ‘attachment hell’ is likely to be well received by users, and we expect service providers will value the opportunity to host, deliver and price these productivity tools."

OX Text will be available early April released under GNU General Public License 2 and Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 License, as well as under commercial licenses that offer support based subscriptions to telecom and mobile carriers, hosting companies, cloud providers, VARs and SIs to enable their SaaS, Managed Services and mobile App strategies.

A preview of OX Text is available at http://ox.io/ox_text.

About OX:

Open-Xchange is maker of communication and collaboration software for the mobile-app economy that enables full collaboration of email, documents, scheduling and social media. Built for the cloud, the flagship product OX App Suite connects business and personal worlds, across devices and legacy systems. Sold and delivered through cloud and hosting providers, telcos and local Internet services companies—OX App Suite gives individuals the freedom to collaborate, work and communicate the way they want.

As an open source company, OX challenges the status quo established by the digital giants with a focus on bringing choice back to the internet by putting control of content back into the hands of the user. OX customers include hosting companies and telcos, such as 1&1 Internet, Host Europe Group, Strato, Network Solutions and Hostway to name a few. These leading edge service providers use OX’s suite of applications to deliver meaningful services and connection to individual’s data.

The company is privately owned and headquartered in Nuremberg, Germany. It also has offices in New York and San Jose.

For further information, please visit: http://www.open-xchange.com.