Aller Media Offers New Features To Suomi24 Email Users With Dovecot And OX App Suite Hosted On Microsoft Azure

HELSINKI, Finland, and NUREMBERG, Germany - Aller Media today announced migration of 250 000 Suomi24 email accounts to Dovecot Mail as a Service hosted on Microsoft Azure cloud platform. The service helps Aller to extend their offering to SME segment and brings new premium value to Suomi24 consumer customers. Email is core service of Suomi24, the largest web community in Finland, with over 1,4 million weekly visitors.

Dovecot Mail as a Service is a turnkey service solution by Finnish open source software vendor Dovecot, using the Dovecot Pro IMAP server mail back end and Open-Xchange OX App Suite front end hosted on Microsoft Azure cloud platform. Dovecot Pro IMAP is a popular commercial ISP and Telco email solution.

OX App Suite provides users with a central web interface for all communications on all their devices where customers come for their daily digital needs. It is a one-stop platform that combines email, calendar, contacts, files and more – helping users regain control over their digital interactions, at work and at play. As white-label product, it is fully customized in line with Aller Media´s needs and consumer requirements.

“We chose Dovecot and OX App Suite because of the relevant selection of premium features and the possibility to offer domain based email services” says Laura Avonius, the product owner of Suomi24 services. “Also the cost efficiency and support for mobile user experience were part of the selection criteria,“ she continues.

Cost effective and scalable solution

Dovecot estimates that mail storage needs at ISPs grow at 40% per year. Microsoft Azure is enabling customers and users, including those using open source software, to increase their service availability while also decreasing operational costs.

“The Microsoft Azure platform is a remarkable display of openness in its support of innovative open source platforms.  Microsoft is engaged and is a responsive partner who is able to help us grow our business,” says Dovecot Oy CEO Markku Kenttä.

Open source support is enabled from the infrastructure level on the Microsoft Azure platform, with VM Depot offering hundreds of Linux-based images for easy deployment.  Besides computing and storage resources Azure provides also databases, authentication, integration and web sites.

Pasi Mäkinen, Platform Strategy Lead at Microsoft Finland, comments their Dovecot co-operation: “Our goal is to help Dovecot’s customers’ transition to the cloud, and to help them grow their business without having to worry about capacity.”