Rockliffe has been providing messaging systems for several years. The company’ primary messaging system, MailSite, is now the name of the company, as well. Last week, the company introduced MailSite Collaborator 8 which the company is positioning as an alternative to Microsoft Exchange for smaller organizations. MailSite currently supports 15 million mailboxes worldwide.

MailSite Collaborator 8 includes not only an e-mail server, but also a contact server and a calendar server. The system offers a number of important features, including support for a variety of e-mail clients, including Microsoft Outlook and Outlook Express, Mac’s built-in mail client, Windows Vista Mail, Eudora and Thunderbird. Calendar compatibility includes Windows Vista Calendar, Google Calendar, Mac iCal and other calendar clients. One of the key benefits of MailSite Collaborator is that it supports Outlook 2007 without requiring plug-ins. The system offers a completely redesigned AJAX ‘Web 2.0’ client that has been designed with a look and feel similar to that of Outlook. Other features include improved spam filtering that includes greylisting and automatic synchronization of contacts with Outlook.

As with some of MailSite’s competitors, the company offers the system at no charge for up to 20 employees. A 50-user license is $495 per year, or just under $10 per user per year. Antispam and antivirus capabilities are charged separately.

Along with enterprise messaging alternatives from companies like Zimbra, Scalix, CommuniGate and others, MailSite offers a viable messaging system for smaller organizations. Although Microsoft Exchange is a very good mail system, particularly Exchange 2007 with the enhancements it offers, most of the alternatives to Exchange are much less expensive to deploy. This allows smaller organizations to reap the benefits of an enterprise messaging system at significantly lower cost per seat for an on-premise solution.

Michael Osterman is principal analyst of Osterman Research.