Zimbra

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Zimbra Collaboration Suite
Image:zimbracommunity2.png

Zimbra's webmail interface
Developed by Zimbra Inc.
Latest release 5.0.5
OS Linux and Mac OS X (server);
any (client)
Genre Groupware
License Yahoo Public License 1.0
Website http://www.zimbra.com

Zimbra Collaboration Suite (ZCS) is a groupware product created by Zimbra Inc., located in San Mateo, California, USA. The company was bought by Yahoo! in September 2007.[1][2] The software consists of both client and server components. Two versions of Zimbra are available: an open-source version, and a commercially supported version ("Zimbra Network") with closed-source components.

The ZCS Web Client is a full-featured collaboration suite that supports email and group calendars using an Ajax web interface that enables tool tips, draggable items, and right-click menus in the UI. Also included are advanced searching capabilities and date relations (e.g. hover over the phrase "tomorrow at 6:00 PM" in an email message and the system will display any appointments at that time). Online document authoring, "Zimlet" mashups and a full administration UI are also included. It is written using the Zimbra Ajax Toolkit.

The ZCS Server uses several open source projects (see the section, Included open source projects). It exposes a SOAP application programming interface to all its functionality and also is an IMAP and POP3 server. The server runs on many distributions of Linux as well as on Mac OS X.

ZCS is compatible with proprietary clients such as Microsoft Outlook and Apple Mail as well as the open-source Novell Evolution, so that mail, contacts, and calendar items can be synchronised from these to the ZCS server. Zimbra also provides native two-way sync to many mobile devices (Nokia Eseries, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile).

Contents

[edit] Product Screen Shots

Screenshot of Zimbra's webmail interface
Screenshot of Zimbra's webmail interface
Screenshot of Zimbra's contacts interface
Screenshot of Zimbra's contacts interface
Screenshot of Zimbra's calendar interface
Screenshot of Zimbra's calendar interface


[edit] Capabilities

On February 5th, 2008 Zimbra launched the 5.0 version of Zimbra Collaboration Suite (ZCS).[3] This release added many major enhancements from ZCS 4.5 (released in January 2007). As of ZCS 5.0 capabilities include:

Web features

  • Email with shared public folders
  • Contacts from Global Address List
  • Shared Calendars, including free/busy interoperability with Exchange 2003 (new)
  • Online document authoring and edit history (new)
  • Instant Messaging (new)
  • Tasks application (new)
  • Store attachments online in a briefcase (new)

Clients and mobile

  • Support for POP3/IMAP4 email clients
  • MAPI sync to Outlook 2003 and 2007
  • Sync to Apple desktop apps via iSync and CalDAV (new)
  • Over-the-air sync to Windows SmartPhones and BlackBerry handsets (via BES) (new)
  • Mobile access with J2ME devices and HTML browsers (new)

Administration

  • Web-based Administration Console and CLI tools
  • Multi-tenancy support
  • Integrated Anti-Spam and Anti-Virus
  • Compatibility with LDAP and Active Directory
  • Single or multi-node server installation
  • Real time backup and restore
  • High availability and clustering
  • Hierarchical storage management

More information on capabilities.

[edit] Software license

Zimbra Collaboration Suite (ZCS) source code is available under the terms of the Yahoo Public License (YPL) which is derived from the Mozilla Public License (MPL), and accordingly requires that modifications made to existing files, if distributed, be provided in source code form to the recipients under the same license. It also includes a clause requiring trademarks, logos, etc be preserved making it an "attribution-style" open source license.

Categorically it is similar to the Open Source Initiative (OSI) Common Public Attribution License (CPAL). Attribution-style open source licenses are a newer trend in recent years; and though now embraced by the OSI [4] are not without some controversy. Some believe they may violate sections of the Open Source Definition and abuse term "open source"[5] while others believe they enable overall growth of the open source movement by allowing "commercial open source" companies (SugarCRM, Socialtext, Zimbra) to compete with proprietary ones in the enterprise.

[edit] Included open source projects

The ZCS Server leverages open source projects such as:

[edit] External links

[edit] See also

[edit] References