The story of Zimbra
Updated
![zimbra[1].1.ktb.102605.JPG](http://www.siliconbeat.com/entries/zimbra%5B1%5D.1.ktb.102605.JPG)
Here’s our Mercury News story about Zimbra, the San Mateo start-up that is taking on Microsoft with its new open-source AJAX-filled email platform. We mentioned them earlier here, but this latest story goes a bit deeper.
Zimbra has a free version for individuals who don’t want to make money from it, but…
its main purpose is to sell to large companies that are already using competing products such as Microsoft.
One thing we didn’t mention, for lack of space, is the attention chief executive Satish Dharmaraj (he is on left, in this picture; click to enlarge) took to choosing his investors. Every one of them has experience in open-source or selling to big companies (enterprise). These investors have backed big-name open-source companies Redhat, MySQL and JBoss — a decent roster for any company trying to succeed in open-source.
(Photo by Karen T. Borchers — Mercury News)
Update: Included link to Merc story
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About the Author, Matt Marshall
Matt launched VentureBeat in September of 2006, with the realization that no one else was covering the entrepreneurial and tech innovation scene with the velocity or depth that he was. Prior to founding VentureBeat, he covered venture capital for the San Jose Mercury News from 2001 to 2006. In 2002, Matt was awarded "Journalist of the Year" by the Northern California Society of Professional Journalists. Prior to working at the Merc, he was a correspondent for the Wall Street Journal in Bonn, Germany from 1995 to 1998, and a writer for the Washington Post in 1994. Matt holds a PhD in Government and an MA in German and European Studies from Georgetown University. In addition to VentureBeat, Matt is also the Executive Producer of DEMO, the leading launchpad event for emerging technologies.
