Equinox Software, Inc, announces new hosting and support services for the Koha open source ILS to libraries. Two different packages will be available for libraries to choose from based on their needs and resources.
Koha on Demand
is aimed at libraries looking for quick provisioning of new Koha databases. This service provides a modern, full-featured ILS with system administration managed by Equinox.
Koha Dedicated Hosting
provides a virtual private server (VPS) with Koha installed. This service is geared toward libraries looking to outsource the provisioning, hosting, and basic maintenance of a Koha database while still having direct access to customize and develop their Koha installations as they see fit.
According to Galen Charlton, Equinox Vice-President for Data Services, “Equinox Software will, of course, continue to support and develop Evergreen. However, we are taking advantage of in-house Koha expertise to be able to diversify our service offerings. In addition, we plan to build on our expertise in resource sharing in the context of a single ILS and extend it to encompass sharing among multiple ILSs.”
There has been debate in the Koha community about certain issues regarding development and community assets. One of Equinox’s advantages for Koha customers is the Equinox Promise(http://blog.esilibrary.com/2009/09/16/the-equinox-promise/).Full access to the source code will always be available to our hosted customers, to use, modify, or redistribute under the terms of the GPL. Furthermore, source code will be available in a form that makes it convenient for a customer to manage and submit contributions to the Koha project.
Brad LaJeunesse, CEO of Equinox Software, says “Equinox supports a global, unified Koha project whose assets, including global trademarks and project-websites, are held on behalf of Koha users and developers everywhere by a vendor-neutral Koha foundation or similar non-profit entity.”
About Koha
Created in 1999 by Katipo Communications for the Horowhenua Library Trust in New Zealand, Koha is the first open source Integrated Library System to be used worldwide. The software is a full-featured ILS with a dual database design (text based and RDBMS) built to be library standards compliant. Koha’s OPAC, staff, and self-checkout interfaces are all web applications. Distributed under the General Public License (GPL), libraries are fee to use and install Koha themselves or to purchase support and development service.
For more information on Koha, please visithttp://koha.orgorhttp://koha-community.org.
About Equinox Software, Inc.
Founded by the original Evergreen designers and developers, Equinox Software is a growing team of skilled professionals who bring a comprehensive array of talent to continue improving Evergreen, the consortial, open source Integrated Library System (ILS). Equinox not only continues to develop Evergreen but, also consults, migrates, integrates, supports and offers hosting packages for libraries that prefer not to maintain local servers. Equinox also engages and supports a rapidly expanding Evergreen community.
For more information on Equinox Software, please visithttp://www.esilibrary.com