Kerio, developers of Kerio Mail Server, announced today that a new version of their powerful enterprise-class collaboration product is now available. Kerio Connect 7, as the product is now called, is a re-branding of the venerable server application that illustrates that the package has gone well beyond just being a mail server.

John Jones of Kerio explained the details of the new release in a recent phone interview with TUAW. Kerio Connect 7 now allows distributed servers to work with one another, making it possible for large enterprises with widely-dispersed facilities to place servers at locations local to each office.

The multiple servers can behave as a single, large server, sharing calendars and global address lists, and users can be easily moved between servers for load balancing. The new release also provides web-based administration tools.

The minimum size group license for Kerio Connect 7 is 5 users, making it possible for small organizations to start out with a power collaboration server, and then scale up as they gain employees. Kerio Connect 7 also supports CardDAV and CalDAV, providing a way for organizations to share address books and calendars. The server is, of course, cross-platform (Mac OS X, Windows, Linux) and works well with all clients including iPhone and Android phones. In addition to running natively, Kerio Connect 7 can be run on a virtual machine under either VMWare or Parallels.

The upgrade is free to customers who have purchased support and maintenance from Kerio, and other pricing for the product can be found on the Kerio website.