Slashdot Mirror
Yahoo Acquires Zimbra for $350 Million
TechCrunch is reporting that Yahoo has acquired the open source office suite Zimbra for $350 Million in cash. Zimbra has been in and out of the news over the last couple of years for their office suite, and recently launched offline capabilities. "The company has raised $30.5 million over three rounds of funding from Benchmark Partners, Redpoint Ventures, Accel Capital, Sumitomo and Duff, Ackerman & Goodrich. They announced 6 million paid mailboxes back in March, and more recently inked a deal with Comcast that brings another 12 million potential subscribers."
Perhaps I've missed something but isn't Yahoo usually not too fond of open source stuff? Perhaps they're changing their ways? Or maybe they just want to make Zimbra proprietary to kill any open souce competition? I guess time will only tell on this one...
"A truly wise man realizes he knows nothing."
lol...already modded down!
Last year I setup a dual box zimbra system to replace some rather high traffic imap servers that served ~1200 users with 550+ concurrent during periods of heavy load, with a *lot* of incoming and outgoing mail peppered full of attachments. I was pretty skeptical at first about how the system would hold up, but not only was it solid, in many ways it was much faster than the previous system, especially with the mailboxes that were huge in size.
Solid backups, good inegration with third party software, easy extension and a solid upgrade in place system makes for a great product. It didn't hurt that their techs were responsive and actually knew about all the software (much of it OSS) that their product was based on. I'm suprised that is Yahoo though, figured it would be Apple to turn into their enterprise mail platform.
--- I do not moderate.
I agree with you though, that Yahoo is not very friendly with Open Source. Look at their Launchcast music service...it's not friendly to Firefox even to-date!
Unfortunately, I cannot make a difference since I am no developer.
They really should have taken a look at zombo.com. There are many more possibilities there, according to the sources I've queried.
interetsing to note that zimbra uses google for mail search ... :P
inked a deal with Comcast
This had me interested until I read that they made a deal with the devil.
This is not yet another competitor for Microsoft Office or Open Office. (God knows we don't need any more!) Zimbra is a little more specialized, concentrating on email, scheduling, and other "collaboration" stuff.
I seem to recall trying Zimbra a little while back and not being terribly impressed. Yahoo seems to have a history of buying companies for the sake of products or services they would have been better off developing themselves. Anybody remember broadcast.com?
No need to fork Zimbra, we have a light weight alternative in Bongo (http://www.bongo-project.org/) that we'd love to have more people help out with.
As well as Bongo, there is also Citadel doing similar things, Kolab doing completely different things, and a couple of web-only groupware systems.
Zimbra's by no means the only game in town.
"Elmo knows where you live!" - The Simpsons
I did not know this http://www.bongo-project.org/ existed. I swear to God...I have never heard of Bongo at all. One wonders what else I do not know about.
Zimbra is by far the best at what it does. It's better than every web based Groupware (is that the proper name?) software out there. Let's just hope Yahoo doesn't run it into the ground. I don't see why they'd actually want or need this software. Yahoo already has lot's of talented programmers and pretty decent software. The Zimbra code is probably useless to them and all of Zimbra's features and quality could be copied without owning them. It isn't like Google buying Youtube (i.e. buying established users) because Zimbra really only has a cult following. For how good it is, it really isn't that popular. This purchase really confuses me. Like I said, I hope they actually do something with Zimbra instead of buying it and letting it sit on the shelf.
If an officer ever threatens to taze you, say you have a pacemaker.
We're saving the noise and partying for 1.0 ;)
"Elmo knows where you live!" - The Simpsons
Ogg like pussy!
Yeah, some toy app like Bongo is not really in the same league as Zimbra.
Not even close.
oooo, this could turn out bad. There has been a lot of talk of Microsoft buying Yahoo in an attempt to catch up to Google. And if MSFT does buy Yahoo, thereby acquiring Zimbra, it is another FOSS code base that we might lose time and effort on.
Of course, we don't want to speculate needlessly about a Microsoft acquisition of Yahoo. This is exactly the wedge that we see Microsoft driving into the FOSS community with their deals with Novell, Xandros, and Linspire. Undoubtedly, one of the benefits to Microsoft of the Yahoo acquisition talks is that many members of the FOSS community will shy away from Yahoo, simply because they might become a Microsoft property. And even people who like Microsoft and its products might hesitate to use Yahoo products and services if they see Yahoo stumbling.
So I would like to see Yahoo get its financial house in order. I am really fond of Google and its products and services, and I tend to use Google tools and properties more than the Yahoo counterparts. But I wouldn't want to have competition in this area reduced to only two major players: Microsoft and Google.
So come on, Yahoo, get your act together! And stop talking with Microsoft about acquisitions! Ick!
Have you seen and tested bongo?
Bongo is a for from novell's hula project.
It has a very nice web front end. Is a complete suit with mail, calendar and addressbook servers. More is yet to come. They don't even have a stable release yet!!!
Anyone want to bet that in 3 years you'll be seeing something like this on Zimbra's main page?
Anybody want to bet that nobody in the current company will be doing anything related to their current job in 3 years?
Anybody want to bet that Yahoo hasn't learned anything from previous mistakes?
But I'm not bitter or anything.
Zimbra.
It took me a while to not read that as "Yahoo buys Zambia for $350M."
Sure enough the high price was what tipped me off to my mistake.
-- the opinions stated above aren't those of my employer. in fact, they're probably not even my own. you know what, ju
From the Zimbra press release:
Will the Zimbra server and Web client remain open source?
* Access to the Zimbra source code will remain available and free.
Will new Zimbra projects and additions to the current Zimbra suite be open source?
* Zimbra will continue its practice of offering both an open and certified, network editions of the software.
Vote Libertarian
Yeah, have you ever tried Zimbra?
:)
Didn't think so, or you wouldn't be comparing it to the toy.
I swear, sometimes it's hard to tell who has dumber names: Web 2.0 startups, or Open Source projects.
It's like the Dot-com Bubble all over again. I can't wait until next week's story, about how WUB.com has bought Flizmo for $X50 Thrillion...
I hope Yahoo takes over sales for Zimbra. I tried to position Zimbra in a college and when I attempted to contact Zimbra's sales department the phone rang and rang and rang. Where I come from you want sales people available if you're in the business of selling "stuff."
Every website Yahoo has created, and every service, you can just feel their touch. The touch of incompetence. Their web mail client sucks. Their image sharing service sucked. Their search engine sucked (at least until Google came along).
Yahoo is an incompetent company and everything that they have done and I have seen sucked.
Hmm, from personal experience I'd say Zimbra is a pretty shitty application suite, if you read the source and develop for it (zimlets,etc), it's not that solid of a application suite. It's interface is ill-documented (no documented api), source poorly written and rather bloated in general. I'd have to hope that Yahoo can improve it, since it needs quite a bit of work to make it match what competitors are offering. Although I look at it more from a developers perspective than a users...
I was curious too. Apparently after Novell chose to stop active (paid, full-time) development on it some people started a fork.
Quack, quack.
Hi Yahoo, this is my Zimbra wishlist:
* Be a poster child for interoperability. Fully support and encourage open standards like CalDAV.
* Replace MySQL w/ PostgreSQL. Do NOT add some pandering database agnostic layer to appease the ignorant. Focus on speed and features, rather than adding bloat for purely political reasons.
* Don't make this a service only. Continue to release a product that I can download, install, and tailor to my particular institution.
* Continue to release a completely free version, and foster the supportive community that will naturally spring up around it. Those people are your best customers, your best advocates, and will gladly help you if you help them.
Good Luck!
As someone waiting patiently for Zimbra 5 to come out and implement it for my group, I think I have to scream from the top of my lungs "FUCK FUCK FUCK... WHY WHY WHY"
In my opinion Zimbra is/was the only quasi-free game in town, and yes I tried almost everything listed: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Free_groupware
Yahoo's mutilation of MM is the primary reason I hate Yahoo.
I don't really care for the licensing terms, as long as the source is available for private perusal.
But opening up your source-code repository is not quite cutting it to me. Where be the releases? I want to see zimbra-N.K.tar.bz2, along with an earlier zimbra-N.K-1.tar.bz2, and, maybe, the preview of zimbra-N+1.beta.tar.bz2.
That's Open Source...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
The flash based Pronto! email, calendar, VoIP, media, rss reader, jabber, pbx and more client we make is light, fast, and scales much better. The install can be downloaded, installed and configured in less than 30 minutes. The entire package is under 15 megs single binary with more than 20 operating systems/hardware combinations supported. There is a live demo system running at http://talktoip.com/ if you'd like to create an account and see for yourself. If you would rather run the software to test you can get it in the CommuniGate Pro package from ftp://ftp.communigate.com/Pub/CommuniGatePro/5.1 . 5.1.12 is the most recent stable version.
As the subject says I am biased for being directly affiliated with the developers of Pronto!
Another case of RIAA selling shoddy, lame products.
My friendly neighbouring pirates are distributing high-quality, premium versions of the same songs that are fully compatible with everything!
No wonder that RIAA can't compete with them, as RIAA is selling cheap knockoffs, while pirates are offering the real goods.
Yes... but how long before Yahoo closes the source?
I mentioned this to someone I know at Microsoft (admittedly over a beer - don't ask) and his response was: "Well, if we'd bought every small African state for OOXML it might have caused problems. Weren't they having a coup or something there recently anyway?". I'm not entirely sure he was joking.
Why did they buy it if it's open source? Couldn't they just download it?
Was it really in cash or was it a bank draft transfer?
IMHO Cash is actual bills... Not a bank account balance equivalent.
I have a hard time believing any bank has 30 million in Cash available to dole out, much less 3 Million.
Anyone who seriously looked at Zimbra already knows that it has a couple of limitations, one of which is that the "open source" version is quite stripped down. If you want the fully functional version you have to pay for it. It is also extremely resource hungry, carrying with it an entire Java application server, an entire copy of MySQL, etc. etc. etc.
That having been said, Zimbra does have a gorgeous UI and it'll be interesting to see what Yahoo does with it.
So what's left for those of us who want to run feature-rich groupware servers on our own hardware? Check out Citadel -- http://www.citadel.org. It is a mature, stable, and feature-rich platform with email, calendars, address books, bulletin boards, instant messaging, GroupDAV for rich clients, and a very nice AJAX web UI. Full support for Outlook will arrive later this year, too. The best part is that unlike Zimbra (or Scalix, for that matter), the whole system is released under the GPLv3. Just like the Ubuntu folks said a few years ago, "There is no 'enterprise' version. We make our very best work available to everyone under the same terms."
Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!
Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!
Zimbra is pleased to announce we have been acquired by Yahoo! (NASDAQ:YHOO).
Yahoo! is acquiring Zimbra to extend its leadership and reach new customers in the business, education, and service provider markets across the globe.
This major opportunity for Zimbra will accelerate our growth using Yahoo!'s worldwide reach, create a larger combined community, plus enable us to build even more powerful experiences together.
For more information please see the official announcement or view the Zimbra Blog.
What does this mean to our Zimbra Collaboration Suite customers? Here's what you need to know:
Yahoo! and Zimbra remain firmly committed to our partners, customers, and all the markets we are currently serving ZCS product editions and pricing remains unchanged; Yahoo! is committed to choice and openness and will continue to offer an on-premise offering and provide access to source code.
Zimbra sales and support operations remain unchanged; including our personnel, web site, and community- sales and support of ZCS continue as normal and planned availability of version 5.0 remains unchanged. In addition, the two teams will develop enhanced experiences and innovative features that leverage both companies' individual assets Like Zimbra, Yahoo! believes our Community is a critical component to our success and together we will grow and support it
Over the coming months Zimbra will also find ways to leverage Yahoo!'s many strengths to make ZCS and the Zimbra Community even more robust; such as more Zimlets / mash-ups and even more developer tools. We will also use Yahoo!'s unprecedented reach to spread the word far-and-wide about Zimbra.
If you have any questions, we strongly encourage you to review our Q&A or contact your sales representative who can provide more information.
Sincerely,
Satish Dharmaraj
CEO, Zimbra
To be honest, i was more interested in seeing where this got: http://sourceforge.net/projects/openchange/
It looked pretty good and has some decent names behind it (now, that wasnt always the case). Plus its kinda functional in both directions in that they were bringing out a native exchange connector for evolution.
I remember writing a whole concept article about a replacement for mail a while ago based on the whole tagging concept but could never get it started. The motivation though was really about the lack of collab suites that exist in the OSS arena. I dont really consider Zimbra to be all that OSS myself though.
Zimbra's badgeware is *NOT* going to be forked. Unless you'd want to hire an army to completely re-engineer the GUI from scratch. The sole intent of strict, attribution based, false-positive OSS licenses like Zimbra's is to give some of the benefits and marketing shizzle of OSS to the authors, and have to contribute as little as possible to the community that supports it. It is designed from conception to by unforkable by all pragmatic standards. Zimbra was designed to be sold.
Quite a not so small oversight, even if you admit to being biased.
I've been using the Zimbra Collaboration Suite (ZCS) for about three weeks, and it has a loooong way to go. It's slow and lacks user interface basics like "Undo." The next version just adds more half-implemented bells and whistles.
Hopefully Yahoo will buy Zimbra a few usability engineers. And an accessibility consultant. And a fleet of documentation writers. If their track record holds (del.icio.us, flickr), this will be good for folks like me who could care less what dotcom is at the helm, but just want the product to be less mediocre.
When I replaced OpenGroupware at my church about a year ago, I looked at both Zimbra and Scalix. Both seemed to do about the same thing, in about the same way. I installed both and tried them out. Functionally, on the web client, I couldn't tell the difference. From an installation point-of-view, Scalix won hands-down. (The Outlook plugin was a little testy, but once the replication stuff was properly setup, it's all been good.) The point that really "sold" the system to me was that I needed the system to do delegation, and, at the time, I could NOT get that working with Zimbra. On Scalix, I wouldn't say it "just worked," but I was able to stumble my way through the tickboxes to a working setup. (In the version I have, I seem to remember needing to frob some things on the web-interface side. I also seem to remember that this would go away in the next release.) Anyway, Scalix is out there, works very well, and is completely free, including the Outlook plugin.
I was just going to link their URL, and I find that they've been bought by Xandros, which might have been sort of worrying on its own (being as Xandros is such a small player in the field, I guess that implies something about the size of Scalix as well), but they recently did a "patent" deal with Microsoft. Oops. I may have a problem now.
Acts 17:28, "For in Him we live, and move, and have our being."