They would be similar systems, but just with different software configurations.
OpenExchange is groupware software ment to have a similar capabilities as Microsoft Exchange. It's for email, contact information, calendering, and will have a number of document handling capabilities. It's ment for a more corporate enviroment.
I'd expect that Suse OpenExchange is simply Suse Enterprise server with OpenExchange configured on it.
Here is the features/overview for Enterprise..
http://www.novell.com/products/linuxenterpriseserver/features.html
This is for Suse OpenExchange.
http://www.novell.com/products/openexchange/features.html
Personally I'd just get Suse enterprise unless you think the OpenExchange program itself is the bee's knees.. which I doubt it is.
Also check out
http://www.opensuse.org/Welcome_to_openSUSE.org
That way you can get kinda involved in the 'suse community' and be able to get help and find documentation for the various different problems you'll eventually run into.
One thing though...
FTP is a very dangerious, very insecure protocol to use.
This is because if you have people log into your FTP server then their usernames and passwords are transmitted over the internet with absolutely _no_ encryption protections.
For secure file transfer there are several options.
The easiest method is to use OpenSSH for combination remote access and file transfer. Ssh is a secure shell protocol and is designed specificly for secure remote access to your system via the command line. It is installed and running by default on most Linux distros.
It can also provide a method for creating encrypted virtual private networks and file transfer, even though it's not it's primary mission. The VPN stuff can be complicated but the file transfer system is pretty easy and supported by several clients in Linux and in Windows.
There are 2 main modes.. sftp and scp. Secure FTP and secure copy. One it emulates a command line ftp client and the other it emulates the cp command in Linux, but for over the network. There are graphical clients that support file transfer over ftp though... not sure of any good ones.
Take a look at putty.exe for ssh client for Windows. It's very nice.
http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/download.html
Advantages are that it's very secure and encrypts everything. The disadvantages are that this encryption causes overhead so it slows down file transfer.
Another alternative is to allow anonymous downloads from your server, that way anybody can download, but nobody can upload and thus don't have to transfer file passwords and such.
Another alternative for anonymous ftp accounts for downloading is using the Apache web server.
Advantages for anonymous ftp downloads:
fast, can handle big files
disadvantages:
firewalls screw up ftp. Nat firewalls are especially hard to deal with. FTP is a ancient protocol and not that great at dealing with modern network firewalls sometimes.
Advantages for Apache:
fast. no problems for firewalls, although some ISPs block port 80, which is the default for HTTP traffic, so often you have to use a alternative port like 8080.
disadvantages:
can be complex to setup and file sizes are limited to 2gig.
What I personally use is sftp for most everything and use anonymous download for big files. For big uploads I usually just use sftp.. the overhead isn't a big of a deal if you have a fast computer on both ends and the network bandwidth over the internet is usually the limiting factor. However in a pinch I will log in thru FTP if I realy realy have to, which is very rare.
Also use very strong passwords. Use like over 6-8 letters, mix in special characters (like !@#%), and numbers as well as capitolizing a few of the letters. There are usually password generating utilities like pwgen you can use.
It uses specific methods from some sort of university study somewere to generate secure passwords that are easy to remember.
It's a command line utility and I think it should be aviable on suse. It would be handy if you need to use ftp to upload and download files. You could setup a special account just for uploading/downloading and then log in thru ssh and change the password on it each time or ever few times you use that account. Like carry around a copy of the latest password with you or something like that. Or email a password to a friend (carefull!!! online people troll for passwords and accounts in irc channels and whatnot for bad reasons) for a temporary account so they can upload stuff.
