Hosted email and collaboration software provider Open-Xchange previewed its OX App Suite on Thursday, a new cloud application suite

that provides a single intuitive way of communicating and sharing across platforms and devices.

Launched at its Open-Xchange Summit in Berlin the OX App Suite will be available in December. Open-Xchange hinted at the new cloud

collaboration software in October.

The cloud application suite comes with a web desktop portal, and comes with a set of apps for users to manage their data including email, contacts, calendars, pictures, music, videos and any kind of document. There are other services as well, including Google Mail, Hotmail,

Facebook and LinkedIn.

Built with HTML 5 and the latest Javascript, OX App Suite provides users with access to their data from any device or operating system.

With responsive design, the cloud application suite provides a consistent experience for customers, and delivers fast performance through its “mobile-first” approach, according to the press release.

The cloud application suite will be available as a service from providers, and there will be a software option for on-premise installations.

OX App Suite allows service providers to decide which apps they want to make available to users, and control the price.

Existing Open-Xchange 6 installations can be upgraded to OX App Suite without any user or data disruption,according to the press release. Service providers can offer the new OX App Suite UI or the old one, or both.

“Open-Xchange has successfully engaged service provider partners to deliver email and collaboration software for small businesses and has doubled its growth every year since 2008,” Philbert Shih, managing director with Structure Research said in a statement. “Now,

we’re seeing another leap forward from Open-Xchange when it comes to collaboration software that is made available as cloud apps via

service provider partners.”

Open-Xchange launched a Go-To-Market program at the end of August to help partners customize marketing and sales approaches.

Working in OX App Suite ensures data is synchronized when a connection is lost and restored even if the browser or operating system

crashes, which Open-Xchange says is particularly useful on smartphones and tablets.

“Three years ago we started prototyping and usability testing the next generation of our popular Open-Xchange Server 6,”Rafael

Laguna, CEO of Open-Xchange said in a statement. “The culmination of this is OX App Suite –  a real game-changer both for users and for

service providers. Like the German design principles invented by Bauhaus and further developed by Dieter Rams at Braun (famously

copied by Apple), we’ve made things easy and streamlined to give users the very best possible experience.”