Zimbra tops 40M paid users: More popular than Gmail?
Updated
We’ve written glowingly about Yahoo-owned email and collaboration software Zimbra before, but it looks like we’re far from being the only fans. In fact, Zimbra announced that has crossed the 40 million user mark. And those are paid mailboxes, not free accounts.
Zimbra has flown a bit under the radar — it’s not exactly obscure, but I don’t watch it as closely as, say, Gmail. It turns out, however, that Zimbra actually has 31.4 million users… Continue Reading
Zimbra founder and investor Satish Dharmaraj leaves Yahoo
Satish Dharmaraj, the co-founder of Zimbra and an active angel investor, is leaving Yahoo, Boomtown reports. He’s not saying why — I interrupted him in a meeting when I called to ask — but in the last half a year he’s already put angel funding into simplified blogging service Posterous as well as open-source web meeting company Dimdim.
He and his cofounders sold e-mail software company Zimbra to Yahoo for $350 million some 15 months ago,… Continue Reading
Zimbra offers hosted collaboration tools for universities
There’s a growing trend towards “hosted” software — saving money on hardware and IT expenses by letting someone else host your software on their servers. Now, Yahoo-owned Zimbra is getting into the act. For universities, it’s offering a hosted version of its email and collaboration software. Similar offerings for other Zimbra customers, such as small businesses and government agencies, will probably follow.
The educational market already accounts for 2 million of the more than 20 million… Continue Reading
How big an opportunity is the external memory?
Before the advent of the written word, the story goes, humans had to either store all their memories in their own heads, or by oral tradition passed down through designated members of their tribes. With trade came notation of facts and figures, and later alphabets, books and libraries. With them came the modern brain, which treats recorded knowledge as an extension of itself.
Throughout these developments, previous generations have grumbled that each new advance leaves us… Continue Reading
Roundup: IT spend trending down, Google’s next move, our many privacy issues, and more
Spending in IT trends downward — Growth in spending is slipping from 7 percent to 5 percent this year, according to a Goldman Sachs report summarized on CNET. Cost cutting measures are getting the most new investment, with server virtualization topping the list.
Google may start auto or music service — Having successfully predicted that Google would start Google Health and a virtual world, which turned out to be Lively, research firm Hitwise has turned back to its… Continue Reading
Zimbra releases more versatile IM and other features that put Outlook to shame
Zimbra , the nifty messaging software owned by Yahoo, has unveiled the latest iteration of its collaboration features, and it’s impressive.
Zimbra, you’ll recall, arrived on the scene four years ago and wowed people with a Web service that uses AJAX technology to let you switch seamlessly between your mail, calendar and contacts – for example popping up maps automatically if you scrolled over an address in email, or allowing you to make a phone call if… Continue Reading
Four startups ready to change the face of email
In ten years, an internet eternity, web-based email has only made token improvements, moving from Hotmail to Gmail. Meanwhile, instant messaging and social networks have rapidly developed.
Four new startups, all of which came out of secrecy this year, point toward a bright new future for email. These oddly-named saviors — Fuser, Orgoo, Xobni and Xoopit — have a simple goal. They want to centralize communication, and they want to give it structure and meaning.
Power users… Continue Reading
Yahoo to buy email provider Zimbra for $350M
Yahoo is set to announce the acquisition of open-source email provider Zimbra, a company that has made headway providing services for other big companies such as Comcast. The news was first reported by AllthingsD, but there was no price mentioned. It’s rumored to be $350 million, according to Techcrunch.
San Mateo, Calif.-based Zimbra’s clients include ISPs and a number of colleges. It was backed with $30.5 million in three rounds from Benchmark Partners, Redpoint Ventures, Accel… Continue Reading
Zimbra releases iPhone version
Zimbra, the fast-growing email and calendar service, has released a mobile version specifically for the iPhone.
Here’s information on the player, called the iZimbra. The link will work until about 10am today, when the company will make its announcement.
iZimbra will allow users to get their address books, e-mail, and calendars where ever they are, without the need for iSync or Outlook connectors — because it runs from the Zimbra server. The download works over the air,… Continue Reading
Messaging upstart Zimbra cuts big deal with Comcast
Zimbra, the open-source messaging software company that offers more modern features than Microsoft’s Outlook, has cut a major deal with Comcast, keeping it on an impressive trend of growth.
It benefits Comcast because it lets the cable giant give its customers a messaging platform — the idea being it will stem the defection of customers to services like Gmail or Yahoo Mail. Zimbra’s messaging system is in some ways more sophisticated that the email systems provided… Continue Reading
Adobe, Slingshot, others pressuring Microsoft
Adobe and others continue to roll out new software iterations, all challenging Microsoft’s dominance of popular consumer software.
Adobe recently released Apollo, a software that lets developers create Web applications that work online and offline on your desktop. Today, Adobe also releases Creative Suite, which bridges the gap between Adobe’s design software, such as image editor Photoshop and Illustrator, and its Web-development tools like Flash and Dreamweaver. (See announcement here).
The new features allow designers to manipulate… Continue Reading
Zimbra lets you use its AJAX messaging software offline too
Zimbra, the San Mateo open-source messaging software start-up that has been on a roll lately, now lets you work with it offline.
Among companies offering AJAX technology for email/office products — which let you do cool useful things like scroll over an address and have a map pop up, and switch seamlessly to your contacts and calendar — Zimbra is the first to be available both online and offline, to our knowledge. Google has said it… Continue Reading
Zimbra’s rocking email service
Updated
Zimbra, the open source messaging software company, has just announced that it has sold four million Zimbra mailboxes, an impressive milestone for the three year old San Mateo company.
Zimbra, you’ll recall, gives you an email platform that implements the latest AJAX majic. It started last year by letting you do things like pull up Google maps by scrolling your mouse over an address written in the e-mail, or pop up your calendar when you mouse… Continue Reading
Microsoft Live — too little, too late
(Editor’s note: Silicon Valley techies have argued before that Microsoft’s days of dominance are numbered, as open source and other cheaper software make headway. Satish Dharmaraj, of open source messaging company Zimbra, writes that Microsoft’s most recent efforts, with Office Live and Windows Live, aren’t going to help. Don’t worry, we’ll get Microsoft’s views on this later.)
There is a massive shift going on in our industry and its transforming the way money flows through… Continue Reading