Zimbra Collaboration Suite Launched

commonchaos writes "Recently a company named Zimbra has come out of nowhere and released an open source Exchange replacement. The exciting part is a front end that uses AJAX. There is an impressive flash demo, you can download the source or try out a "live" version of the code yourself." Interestingly, this open source system seems to be very similar to the recent Yahoo announcement covered on Slashdot.

What is the merit of replacing an Exchange server

Let's say I've got an Exchange server farm running my network's mail system. Everything seems to work okay, but it's about time to stick with what I've got, upgrade to the next Exchange version, or look to another vendor (like Zimbra).

What kind of benefits would I see moving to another product? I can see Microsoft's checklist features and see exactly what will be changed between this version of Exchange and the next, but I'm wondering what the benefits will be if I move away from Exchange.

I'm not a sysadmin, so I'm wondering what criteria you guys use when making the decision to jump ship.

Re:What is the merit of replacing an Exchange serv

"but I'm wondering what the benefits will be if I move away from Exchange"

For one thing $$$ in future licensing fees.

Re:What is the merit of replacing an Exchange serv

Don't take this as advice, because I don't know your mail setup. That said if you need a "farm" of computers to run your mail and your company has fewer than 100,000 employees, I think the benefit of moving off Exchange should be obvious: you wouldn't need the farm any more. Exchange's hardware requirements are 10-100x more demanding than an equally-functional setup using, for example, sendmail and dovecot. Even extremely large configuration can be run off a pair of Linux machines, and the second is only needed for redundancy. When provisioned with sufficient storage, your basic x86 Linux computer can handle huge mail loads. Think of the savings in terms of rack space, power, and cooling alone!

If you were moving to a newer Exchange you already know the hidden costs: software for managing Active Directory quirks (from CA or whomever), special backup software that interfaces properly with exchange (possibly licensed per mailbox) and so forth. With the usual Linux setups you would backup mail the same way you backup anything else: with an LVM snapshot.

Incorrect assumptions

To comment on the article: wouldn't it be great if /. had a regex filter so that we can get rid of these "exchange replacment" articles....
Just today I saw KDE goes wild on an SLES9SP2 system and nearly freeze it - the same fucking thing that used to happen back in 2000. Five years past by and not much has changed.

> That said if you need a "farm" of computers to run your mail and your company has fewer than 100,000 employees, I think the benefit of moving off Exchange should be obvious: you wouldn't need the farm any more.

You need directory services, scheduling, global address book, forms and sophisticated IMAP folder sharing even in a very small company (100 employees), so even in small-and-medium enterprises, people do need Exchange-like functionality and not only SMTP/IMAP/Webmail.
Dovecot: it's in alpha, for Christ's sake (http://www.dovecot.org/ [dovecot.org])

>If you were moving to a newer Exchange you already know the hidden costs: software for managing Active Directory quirks (from CA or whomever), special backup software that interfaces properly with exchange (possibly licensed per mailbox) and so forth. With the usual Linux setups you would backup mail the same way you backup anything else: with an LVM snapshot.

1. Software for managing AD: not really that expensive. On Linux you need to spend as much to write and maintain custom scripts, Webforms and what not.
2. Backup software: yes, because Exchange has its internal database format (i.e. it does not use only flat files). You can't back that up without suspending I/O to a consistent state which means you have to have an application-side plugin.
3. LVM: can't create crash-consistent snapshots of database files so what you say is incorrect, unless you meant snapshots of ordinary IMAP directories (incorrect comparison - database format vs. flat files). Besides, if you have VSS H/W Provider agent on Exchange server, you can take snapshots (on storage or the server itself), re-mount them and backup them using the regular Windows software.

Re:Incorrect assumptions

First thing first, why in the hell are you running KDE on a server, and more important, why are you running an X server on one at all?

A huge number of people that got stuck with Exchange servers want to get rid of them. That's why these articles keep coming up.

What you meant was that you need the address book and directory services. Scheduling tends to be done by secretaries, and forms/IMAP folder sharing is generally not needed. Now if you say you *want* scheduling, etc, then fine, there are a number of quality products from which you can choose. If you define "what you need" to be the exact feature set of Exchange, then it isn't surprising that you think you need it. You can implement everything that Exchange/Outlook does with other software, cheaper, with more reliability, and on less hardware.

1. As for AD management software... let's see. You bought Windows Server because it's easy to use and admin, Exchange because it's easy to admin, and are using AD because it's easy to admin. So to do it right, you have to buy third party software? Sounds more like somebody screwed up their research and choose a bad solution based on broken assumptions. You have to do basically the same thing on any platform, so that's not a good reason to choose one over another. The UNIX solutions are much more reliable than Exchange, too, and less expensive. They also provide all the same functionality. Unless you go out of your way to ignore the solutions that work, anyway.

2. That's because Windows' does not provide functionality such as LVM. An application can also lock a file and prevent any app with any access level from even reading it. Exchange also keeps quite a lot open and locked when it doesn't need to. If the app was written well, it wouldn't be a problem. However, your backup explaination is an excellent example of why Windows is a huge pain in the ass.

3. BS, that is a perfectly valid comparison; backing up email is backing up email. If the application is written properly, the database will be fine. Exchange isn't written well, so it has problems. That software doesn't even provide a way to do a backup without either getting third party software or shutting Exchange down. Also, your VSS stuff is essentially the *exact same thing* as LVM snapshots. Why would your way work when LVM wouldn't? If the database is inconsistent, then it's inconsistent either way.

So what you're saying is that Windows/Exchange is better because it requires more jumping through hoops, buying more random software, and more dealing with random BS like bad data formats and bad storage techniques?

Re:What is the merit of replacing an Exchange serv

...Exchange's hardware requirements are 10-100x more demanding than an equally-functional setup using, for example, sendmail and dovecot.

You have got to be kidding me! Sendmail/Dovecot doesn't even approach the functionality of Exchange. Not even close. Dont' get me wrong, there are plenty of reasons to not run Exchange, but lack of features is not one of them. There is a reason why Exchange uses so much resources. Microsoft programmers are not THAT incompetent. The bloat comes from feature creep, not so much bad programming. The question is, are you using all the features of Exchange? If not, one might consider something simpler like sendmail/IMP, but a lot of people like the group calendaring and all that.

-matthew

Re:What is the merit of replacing an Exchange serv

I can give you the reasons why I moved away from Exchange. Others may have different reasons, and others may have good reasons to stay with Exchange. Anyway, this is my own example.

In a small (but growing) business of a dozen employees, an old NT server SBS edition with Exchange 5.5 needed to be replaced. I decided to go with a Linux server.

On the Exchange side, what I didn't like was:

1. all email is in a proprietary database, in a single (huge!) file. If something goes wrong with that file (as it once did), it's a nightmare to bring it back up, if it works at all. If you can't repair it, you loose anything that came in after the last backup.

2. speaking of backups, Exchange needs special Exchange-aware backup programs. You cannot just copy the files.

3. Lack of flexibility in handling of incoming mail, spam filtering, forwarding, etc.

4. No ssh access for quick and easy remote administration.

5. No simple text-file based configuration, meaning no grep or such to find some setting. You have to move around all the menus if you cannot remember where a setting was.

6. It is hard to move away from proprietary solutions like Exchange because you cannot just copy files and hand them over to another application. That's a good reason to do it rather sooner than later when it may become harder yet. It was not easy to move mailboxes from Exchange to IMAP.

So in the new setup, I used Postfix and Courier IMAP:

1. very easy and very flexible and powerful configuration

2. all configuration through simple text files which can be grep-ed, compared, backed-up, whatever.

3. simple backups through plain file copies or rsync

4. every mail is in it's own plain text file. Can be grep-ed, and if a file goes corrupt (didn't happen yet), it is only that single email.

5. easy administration. For example, I didn't implement quotas, but I'm considering setting up a little script that would check for the size of the maildirs and of single huge files, and send a little email to the users. Like "you are using up 1 GB for emails; please consider removing unnecessary stuff" or "Would you please check if you still need the 50 10 MB files in you mailbox". I can easily add a summary of the huge mails so the user knows which ones they are.

5. easy migration. If I ever decide I would like to replace Postfix or Courier with some other program, it's no problem. I'm not locked in the current programs. Not that I would want to move to other programs. I'm very happy with this setup. But I like to be sure I can if I ever wish to.

This has been running reliably for 6 months now, and I'm a very happy mail admin.

The users have only one complaint: they cannot set up an Out of Office auto-responder like they could on Exchange. I thought that was good, and tried to explain why auto-responders range between useless and evil, but had no success. They want it anyway. So I'm setting up vacation in their .forward files when needed, and looking for a good web interface so they can do it themselves. The Webmin interface I tried didn't work well, so I'm still looking, and may have to work on the Webmin module myself.

Re:What is the merit of replacing an Exchange serv

What mail client were your users using before the switch?

Outlook 2000

After?

Outlook 2003, alas!

The upgrade from Office 97 with Outlook 2000 to Office/Outlook 2003 was not easy. So during a few days, they used Thunderbird for email. Easy to set up, always works, leaves mails on the server (the way I set it up), no hassles.
But most users wanted Outlook. Only 2 still use Thunderbird. Probably my fault: I didn't do any training for Thunderbird. So I suspect that apart from the mushy Fisher-Price TB icons, their problem with TB was mainly that they thought they couldn't do some things because they didn't look in the menus. Nobody was able to give me rational reasons why they preferred Outlook. Anyway, I believe users should have the freedom to use what they like.

Aside from the autoresponder, were there other features that didn't work anymore?

There is no shared calendar, but nobody was using that anyway. If they do want that some day, I don't know what I could use for that and it may be a problem.

There is no central Exchange address book, but that was not needed. They have their own database with all the business contacts, including emails. If needed later, I can set up an LDAP solution or whatever.

Aside from the administrative benefits, were there other features that piggybacked their way in and were found to be useful?

- Free and excellent antivirus (ClamAV)
- Free and excellent spam filtering (a couple of RBLs, header checks in Postfix, and Spamassassin to mark the remaining spam as such)
- Remote administration through SSH. That is not only an admin benefit, but also a user benefit. With Exchange, if they had a problem/question/requirement, they had to wait for me to come by. Now, I can act immediately over SSH. (Of course, you can setup VNC to manage a GUI, but it is slow and clunky). There are also answers I can give them straight away by looking at the logs (X says he didn't get my email / Yes he did; mail.x.com accepted the mail at 12h32; he should ask his own mail admin. I didn't get the email from Y / True, it was rejected because it was 20 MB. etc.)

What safeguards to do you have in place to ensure that those emails are protected from prying eyes?

Nothing special. There is no particular need. There are no "prying eyes" inside the network, and they do regularly have their mail read by someone else to whom they give their password (it's not a bug, it's a feature).

There is no WiFi on the network. I try to explain to them they should use better passwords anyway, but most don't care.

As an admin, I can of course read everything if I want. But I don't want to, and more importantly, they have to fully trust their network admin. If they don't, they need to find another admin quickly anyway. In this regard, network admins are like bookkeepers and doctors. You cannot have one whom you don't trust.

Re:What is the merit of replacing an Exchange serv

If Squirrelmail (WebMail) fits into your config then there is an 'out-of-office' module that can be installed to allow users to manage the vacation functionality for themselves.

Re:What is the merit of replacing an Exchange serv

Why I moved off of Exchanve Server -- I wanted my data in open formats and out of the "black box" that Exchange Server is. We moved to Exchange4Linux [exchange4linux.com], which stores everything (and I mean everything) in a PostgreSQL database (18G and growing). SMTP is whatever you want, but Postfix is what they recommend. I've tried practically every Exchange replacement out there (SLES/SLOX, OpenExchange, a plethora of web-based crap, Bynari, Steltor (now Oracle's) CorporateTime, Hitachi's solution, etc., etc.) and this one is the (clear) winner in my eyes. The entire thing is written in Python, including the Outlook connector, and everything but the connector is open-source. (Outlook connectors are EUR$50/seat with discounts for volume). We still run Outlook on the desktops since that is the user interface and many here still want it, but as far as the backend is concerned, I couldn't be happier now. There is something just plain cool about being able to run arbitrary SQL queries over all of the company's emails, contacts, todos, journals, you name it... We have it tying in to our Asterisk [asterisk.org] PBX as well so, for example, the service guy who's on call gets the emergency page. The service department just maintains their Pager Calendar and I do a lookup to see who's on duty.

E4L isn't without its warts (the IMAP server is still in early development, no POP or LDAP yet), but being Open Source and also being in active development, these get polished or cut out (as necessary) in time. And I can add/change the system and get my changes contributed back. I don't have to worry about where my data went to or if the system ever crashes how to recover the data. If some weird-ass situation comes up and I need to correlate my data in some unforseen way... well now I can, and I don't need some kind of screwed-up and possibly commercial API to get it done. And most importantly for me, I don't have to worry about the system changing or being eliminated due to some other company's paradigm shift.

My own AJAX

I got my own solution to "clean up" Microsoft Exchange junk right here! [wholesalew...supply.com]

Freaking Amazing

I hope the app really works as well as the demo shows.

Interesting. Too bad it costs too little.

Well, while an Exchange killer is certainly one of the holy grails insofar as breaking corporate lock-in to Microsoft, I have to admit a certain degree of skepticism. While OSS has seen it's fair share of success, it has not as yet been able to break into the corporate backoffice software market. This is at least partially due to the continuing reluctance of managment to use software that doesn't cost a damn thing.

I briefly looked around Zimbra's site, so please correct me if I'm wrong, but this looks like another free-as-in-speech replacement software suite. I don't see the PHB's getting excited about this until they have to pay good money for it.

Free software has already won

I'm only interested in stuff that matters, so I read Slashdot (when I should be doing work). From what I've seen on Slashdot, it seems that only free software is ever released and never any proprietary stuff. Isn't that great.

Dependency hell squared

I have a feeling that I'm not going to be installing this myself from source, seeing as they boast that they depend on 40+ other open source projects.

And for anyone who was confused, it's not a drop-in replacement for Exchange servers or clients, it just does what Exchange does, differently. More or less, I guess, not having used it yet :-)

Still, looks like a pretty cool piece of work.

Requires it's own server for everything

My beef with Zimbra is it requires you to use their own mail server. Yes it has IMAP/POP interfaces for clients to connect to, but you cannot simply point it at your existing mail server. It's really only suitable for small or new sites.

Re:Requires it's own server for everything

Yes, Zimbra is not just a webmail client you can slap on top of any IMAP/POP server. The reason for this is not malicious. It is just that a lot of the (compelling, if I may say so myself) functionality you see in ZCS - search, tags, conversations, group calendar, etc, etc - are only possible because of our own server.

On a related note, even though you have to use our server, and even though we love our UI dearly and we hope that you will too, we are client agnostic - we will support as many clients as we possibly can. Which is why we make your data available via IMAP/POP/RSS/iCal/etc.

"The leader in open source collaboration"?

How'd they become the "leader in open source collaboration" if they've only just appeared on the scene? And is it really collaboration software, or just another email server?

Personally, I'm not overly impressed with their "impressive flash demo". This story seems like another new company's attempt to drum up hype by submitting their press-release to Slashdot as a news item. The flash demo is neat and all, but I'd be more impressed if their "live" demo was actually working... If it can't handle a simple Slashdotting, it ain't ready for prime-time.

Stop hammering the site!

I want to check it out also.. :(

Use coral cache instead!
Flash Demo [nyud.net]
Zimbra homepage [nyud.net]

Why, oh why can't Slashdot always link to coral cache instead of keep on killing servers?

Want something different from exchange

Personally, I'm looking forward to hula http://hula-project.org/ [hula-project.org] because it's the sane combination of an enterprise class email platform (netmail) with sensible, link based calendaring and works with pretty much any client. No forced web interface or one program only support. Personally I hope the idea catches on with more people. I can't wait for a point release!

Re:Want something different from exchange

Hula is way too much hype and way too much hubris. Look at how polite the Zimbra people were: "Here's our new product, we hope you like it." Compare with the Hula project, which made the ridiculous (and clearly false) claim that "no other projects exist in this space" and then speak of "taking over the world." It's a project which basically consists of abandonware (NetMail failed in the marketplace) plus vaporware (Nat Friedman's hype machine) and they're already claiming it to be "the Apache of collaboration."

I, for one, have no interest in going anywhere near Hula. With that kind of obnoxious hubris, I'd rather go with any of the other quality products in the open source collaboration space.

If its easier to use the Open-Xchange...

We might have something to look at. Otherwise there's lots of stuff out there, of course managing it can be a nightmare...

no BSD port !!??

The architecture pdf looks good and well thought through. If the goal is to create a rock solid enterprise capable messaging system, then a BSD port and tuning of the file and process permissions are in order. This product installs lots of stuff!! lots of security screeing to do. Great work...I have been waiting for somthing of this calliber for quite a while.

Just watch the demo

AJAX, buzzwords, blah blah blah. Don't care.

But watch the demo. The first part sucks, I agree. Oooh, it does conversations! Big whoop.

But the end is interesting. It starts with the dates -- that's nicely integrated. Then for some serious, customer integration. Custom actions based on pattern matching is pretty cool. If it's easily scriptable, it could be pretty powerful.

Most of the features can be taken for granted. Yes, the marketoids got to it. But dude, if this has a clean API and doesn't suck on the backend, it might be useful.

We are deploying this now

I was quoted in the eWeek article [eweek.com] for this launch. We have been testing this for a few weeks now, and like what we see so far. There is no way in Hell I am letting MS Exchange in here.

The really cool part we see in Zimbra is the possibilities to program our own magic phrases, so everytime someone puts in an Order#, SKU, Invoice# or some other keyword, Zimbra will pick up on it, and link it directly into our ERP.

Zimbra shows a lot of promise--

OpenGroupware.org is very interesting as well

It may not have the fancy Javascripted front-end but it is certainly loaded with useful features for groups of people working together.

Contacts, Calendar, Email, File repository using WebDav (Files are version controlled) and more.

Checkout @Mail instead

Hello,
We use @Mail as a 'replacement' for Exchange - It's commercial but is built on open-source, including Exim / Courier-IMAP / Perl / MySQL - Take a loot at: http://atmail.com/ [atmail.com]
IMHO, @Mail has undergone many more revisions, has commercial support, and have a better WebMail interface then Zimbra.
But on the flip side, great to see some competition to Exchange!
BTW - Why is Ajax the next 'DHTML' hype ... i mean, it's nothing new, just another way to look @ JS

Torrent

For FC3:
http://downloads.zimbra.com/3.0_M1/zcs-3.0.M1_21.F C3.tgz.torrent [zimbra.com]

Sadly...

Unfortunately I don't see this taking off. I installed Zimbra and tried it out myself and it is just too slow. The interface looks really good for a web application, but it is dog slow and very unresponsive to user actions. I can't imagine anyone using the web interface as the primary way of using Zimbra. If Zimbra ever takes off, it is going to need smooth Outlook/Entourage/Evolution integration.

Furthermore, I think this is a good as web applications are going to get. Lets face it people, HTML and web browsers are just not made to run desktop style applications. AJAX is really cool, but the simple fact is that HTML lacks the most basic tools to build a good GUI. The document model just doesn't work for sophisticated applications.

-matthew

Product cost isn't a major part of Mail Server TCO

Most Mail Server deployments are very very expensive to maintain. Exchange's TCO ranges from $140 [techtarget.com] to $230 [oracle.com] per mailbox per year depending on who you ask. There are even a range of companies that provide tools that claim to reduce this TCO (I once worked for one that will remain nameless). Other mail servers have significant TCO's too. But I know of services that charge significantly less per mailbox per year [intermedia.net] so there must be some mail server software that can be maintained for significantly less. *Cough* [linuxjournal.com]

So an OSS solution for this type of software doesn't have the familiar advantage of cost due to it being free (as in beer). But this doesn't mean that this mail server software doesn't have a significantly smaller TCO. And the AJAX interface is a nice touch. But things like how well the software can handle disk failures, how easy it is to do backups, how easy it is to handle 1 million mailboxes, etc. are the factors that make mail server software succeed or fail.

Note: Exchange doesn't do any of these things well.

Nobody mentioned OpenExchange so far...

... which IMO is excellent, Open Source, has an optional Web Interface and is Java based for relatively easy customizing. See their site [open-xchange.org].

Features of OX that I dont see in Zimbra:

• Document management & versioning
• Projects comprised of tasks
• Can be installed with remote, and various MTAs, IMAP, POP3 Servers

And there are connectors for Exchange, Lotus Notes, Evolution, etc.

Nice piece of Rich Client Software indeed

The features are neat and seem do good at dealing with the "E-Mail ist everything" Groupware approach. Which I don't like to much but that would just be me.
Expect the client to do a little slowpocking and eat reasources - but that's a fair trade for a free Groupware that pushes some limits.
I'd actually go by and build an entire Groupware like the Basecamp service in Flash/AS - but again that's just me.

Kudos to them or going through the fuss with JavaScript.

Now Imagine e-groupware, opengroupware, more-groupware, knowledgetree, zimbra and a few other getting together and building ONE GW suite. That would kick the ass out of MS Exchange, no?

*cough* whoopedoo *cough*

Citadel [citadel.org] has been around for years (isn't/wasn't vapour) and is trivial to setup, and supports basically every mail protocol in use (add NNTP to the list once I'm finished developing the code for it) and a full GroupDAV implementation (last time I checked no one else has that yet).

Citadel is driven more towards online communities than small workgroups though, but it works. Apart from maintaining a patch to use bogofilter instead of spamassassin, I rarely touch the install now.

Disclaimer: Very happy Citadel user. And amateur code hacker.

everybody... get.. in.. line!

Ga- Ji, Berrrri Bim- Ba- Klandiri....!

Idots2/ Egroupware is candy

If you're looking for something a little more like a collaboration suite, try Egroupware [egroupware.org]. Has email+calendar + much more.

Idots2 [idots2.org] is a replacement interface for Egroupware that is a whole desktop / multitasking environment in JavaScript. It's pure candy. A little slow on our old server, but beautiful nonetheless. Try the demo [idots2.org].

There are several projects like this.

If you like the idea of an open source collaboration suite, you might also want to check out Citadel [citadel.org], which has been around for quite some time and offers many of the same features. It's very easy to install (doesn't require any manual mucking about with database servers etc.) and has mail, calendaring, address books, bulletin boards, real-time chat, instant messaging, IMAP/POP/SMTP, GroupDAV, and an attractive web front end with an increasing amount of AJAX functionality.

As I said yesterday in another comment, there won't be just one open source replacement for Exchange. Everyone will end up selecting the one whose features fit their organization best, rather than Microsoft's "one size fits all, and you have to use Exchange if you want to use Outlook" approach.

Uninstall

How do you uninstall this thing? I installed it and the load on the server became unbearable. There are no instructions on how to get rid of this thing!

Does it replace port 25 with its own daemon? I need to revert everything back.

name is a little close to "zombo.com"

Welcome to Zombo com [zombo.com] you can do anythign with AJAX/Zombo.com

I can't tell you guys how I'm excited about this

My life is finally completed. This is the last piece of software I have been waiting for from the open source world. I just ordered parts to build my next generation server for my home. An AMD 3200+ Venice core and a ASROCK socket 939 board only cost $210 at ewiz.com. With the FSP 300W fanless power (>80% efficiency), 1GB Unbuffered ECC ram and a bunch of harddrives. I'm building a powerful, reliable and quiet server that runs 24X7 with power consumption of a light bulb (~60W idle). Now with the new exchange replacement + outlook connector + samba, I'm able to seamlessly integrate all Windows/Linux/OQO/PDA I have at home with that server at possibly 0 software cost. Hail to the 21th century.

Tried the demo -- still lacking

I saw this when looking at another slashdot article. I thought it looked nice, and I liked the way it handled conversations. But it was missing a very important feature that ABSOLUTELY have to have. In Exchange it is called Public Folder. The basic function is that I create a mailbox that multiple people have access to. It is nice if it is simply a folder rather than a different mailbox. Usually one person is responsible for the contents of that folder. When that person goes on vacation, I don't have to re-assign their email address to someone else. Nor do I have to give someone else permission to access all of the first person's email account. The second person simply checks the group folder and takes action if needed.

Having the group folder is also helpful if more than one person is assigned to answer emails sent to one address, such as support@(domain). Although there is a small risk of two people working on the same email, there are many different work-arounds to prevent duplication of effort. If I had 10, 20 or 40 people working out of the same folder, I would invest in a CRM that could handle assigning emails, but with only 2 or three dealing with one folder, it is cheaper and simpler to manage them manually.

I have been burned before when an admin uses his personal company email to register a product or list that address as a contact address, only to have the admin leave and not be able to catch and update everywhere his address was used. Then, when an important notice is sent, no one catches it and takes the appropriate action needed at that time. I have long been an advocate of using public or group folders for important emails so that if an admin is no longer employed or simply on vacation, these vital emails do not get missed.

Sadly, the Zimbra software is still missing this group email feature. Until it is there, Zimbra isn't worth a closer inspection to see if it is a viable option.

Innovation? Eh... maybe one or two things...

Zimbra doesn't really push the envelope at first glance, but I was impressed by the conversation controls and the tags.

For me tags are incredibly useful and I am often annoyed at Outlook's search tools and how I handle getting to the mail I really need. So for me, Zimbra doesn't innovate as much as it provides a few interesting gadgets.

The company is clearly designed to be bought out.

The product and suite and the company clearly look like they both were designed to be "flipped", i.e. bought out by a big player. AJAX-based interfaced for Web mail is the big things now, and both Yahoo, Hotmail and Google are racing to deploy them.

I would really be surprised if the company expected to have a snowball's chance in hell to really compete against Exchange. Just like Outpost (which was bought out by Yahoo), I believe this product will be bought out by a larger player and get integrated into some other product line. I suspect this trend accelerated with that Business 2.0 magazine article about designing companies to be flipped.

Out of Nowhere?

how out of nowhere can you be when you show up to LinuxWorld to display your product?

Shared Calendar Backend?

I'm trying to implement a shared calendar and meeting management system for my medium sized non-profit employer (roughly 30 users). We aren't tied to a particular email client, but are using Outlook 2002 right now. Currently our email is provided by out ISP via simple POP3 accounts, but we are going to go to a new provider soon, meaning our email system will have to change anyway.

I'm not to keen on setting up an email server in house (I am the IT department, among other things), so we will likely use a webhost who offers us IMAP mail accounts in our webspace. Currently we have no shared calendar system, and I've been charged with implementing one. The budget is small, so Exchange, etc are out of reach. Aside from that, we don't need a ton of features, just a way to view individual shared calendars, departmental/team calendars (which have multiple readers, one writer), and also allow users to create project calendar's (again with multiple readers and one writer). A system to send and accept meeting invitations is also high on the list. Lastly, being able to view a group of calendars overlayed on one another would be ideal (so you could view departmental calendar and the individual shared calendars of everyone in that department on one calendar.

The client end has to run on Windows, the server can be Windows or Linux. OSS is ideal, for it's free as in beer aspects. I'd like to have email and calendar software in one package, but really they just need to be able to integrate (so I can send you a meeting invite, you get a notice of it, decline or accept it, and the calendar is updated to reflect all of this).

I've looked through all the packages link in this thread, and another semi recent Slashdot story; so Zimbra, OpenGroupware, Citadel, eGroupware, and a few others have all been looked at. They all look like nice software, but I'm not sure which ones I should devote my time to really evaluating. A webbased calendar is completely doable (maybe even nice to not have to deploy any new software to the desktops) but the UI has to be intuitive and effective. (eGroupware's web UI, for example, seemed overly complex for what it had to do).

Our demo is back online...

We've put the demo back up now that the bulk of the slashdotting is over... http://www.zimbra.com/demo/ [zimbra.com]

RTFA - Dig a little deeper before you post!

I've been pouring over the site for a while now. Very very interesting stuff, this Zimbra...

If you actually look at the details, it's a Linux based (Red Hat RPM distro at the moment) that appears to be the absolute best web email system I've seen to date. AJAX is only a very small part of what Zimbra does. AJAX simply improves the end user browser experience by making it feel more like a local application and less like a web app. AJAX allows for page updates without reloading the whole page so it can add features like drag and drop, right-clicking context menus, live searches, etc. i.e. faster instant feedback much more like a native app.

The person behind the site is the former CTO of BEA Systems (WebLogic). He wanted a better email system that was available anywhere. Grouping of discussion threads, saved searches (like Mac OS Tiger), etc. What this group has come up with is pretty darn interesting and if it's well designed will only get better.

The geek reading Slashdot ought to go read the Admin Guide available from Downloads_Documentation_Admin Guide (PDF or HTML). There are some real nice technical explanations not found in the marketing flash demo!
Before you continue to bash it, go check out the technical details while keeping in mind that it's new and will be improved as time moves forward. Linux, Apache Tomcat, PostFix, MySQL, OpenLDAP, SMTP, LMTP, SOAP, XML, IMAP, POP, and AJAX. You can connect with IMAP and POP clients! This means you might be able to connect via IMAP with OS X Mail.app which supports much of the threading, sorting and search features not found in Outlook. iCal can use the calendar system. Addressbook can connect to the LDAP directory for GAL entries. Pretty darn slick! Zimbra has certainly gotten my attention. If you have to you could use Outlook, but I would rather use the web interface then use Outlook! Ugh...

Should be interesting if someone decides to do the same thing in Ruby On Rails! Might be easier to build and maintain and thus faster to market with new features. Same technology except substituting Java and Tomcat for Ruby, the Rails API, plus Lighttpd & FCGI. Go take a look at Basecamp, Backpack, and Ta-da List and you can see that http://www.37signals.com/ [37signals.com] could easily build a similar system to Zimbra and make it sing! Or course the 37signals way of things is to host it for you and you subscribe to it. Zimbra is meant to be installed by your geeks with a support contract to Zimbra and consulting available. There also TextDrive's Strongspace Ruby on Rails app http://strongspace.com/ [strongspace.com]. There is going to be an explosion of such applications being refreshed by AJAX powered feedback. AJAX is exciting as it can greatly improve the user experience. But that's all it does, the backend geekness is where the real fun begins. Whether it's Java or RoR things are going to start changing. Get ready for Web 2.0 without the Web 1.0 hype and dotbomb! You must have a viable business model to succeed with Web 2.0!

Re:Flash Demo

Mine's stuck on the loading page. Seems about par the course for open-source apps *zing* Thankyou ladies and gentleman, I'll be here all week. Don't forget to bludgeon your waittress to a bloody pulp....

Re:Crap

Last time I checked, and correct me if I am somehow wrong, SourceForge never claimed to be nor is used by anyone with a tiny bit of intellect as a pulpit for typical bullshit marketroid speak. SourceForge is a site built around the developer - hence yes, it makes perfect sense to go ahead and put implementation details in the description. For the rest of you, I'm sure Zimbra will make a site listing the top-ten reasons needed to make your PHB switch over...

Frequently, it is unnecessarily difficult to implement certain features with certain technologies. I'd be insane to botch together a redundant 99.999999999999999999999999999999999999999999% uptime phone switch in anything other than Erlang - hence Erlang is a perfectly good thing to put in the description, as it is an enabling technology whose use gives it a significant advantage over other products. Capisci? Non e' difficile.

Re:The source is 150 megabytes!

Anyone knows what's in that thing?

It's full of stars.

Re:Zimbra?? Colab Suite??

What the he... oooohh mesmerizing.

Re:sort of off topic

I don't know any of the people involved here, but I think that if you're going to start mouthing off about someone, you could at least say who you are. Or are your opinions not worth standing by?

Otherwise, how are we to know if this point is valid, or just some random troll. Are you a troll?

Re:Enterprise grade commercial exchange alternativ

Samsung Contact was formerly known as HP OpenMail. I don't know who's to blame for its failure but it was just another great thing that HP had ( or made ) that they just couldn't promote well.