Our friends at Smartsheet have just posted a new Zimlet application tab in the Gallery that looks very promising; we have a few uses in mind already for our team and internal Zimbra deployment.  Here is a summary they kindly provided:

Manage Any Kind of Work with the Smartsheet Zimlet
Add the Smartsheet tab to your Zimbra solution and manage your projects, sales pipelines and crowdsourcing solutions as easily as you manage your Calendar.  Smartsheet puts a familiar spreadsheet-like face on a flexible work automation engine.

Integration Overview
Smartsheet is integrated with the following Zimbra features:

• Calendar - view key project dates in your Zimbra calendar or key Zimbra calendar dates in your Smartsheet project calendar
• Contacts - import Zimbra contacts into Smartsheet for streamlined sharing with colleagues and other collaborators
• Briefcase - attach files from your Zimbra Briefcase to any row in Smartsheet
• Email - receive Smartsheet notifications and reminders via email

The Smartsheet Zimlet is now available in the Zimbra Gallery.  Or watch the brief demo video below for more information.

More About Spreadsheet
Work projects often begin their life as a spreadsheet (e.g. sales pipelines, marketing events, research projects, product plans, candidate tracking,…) that gets emailed around to be updated.

Often, this approach falls short, and companies then invest money and training in converting to a software specific to Project Management, CRM, Marketing Automation, HR, etc.  To the millions of Zimbra users – keep the spreadsheet layout you like and gain the additional automation you need.  Smartsheet gives you a familiar, flexible spreadsheet interface and enables you to:

• Attach any file or Zimbra Briefcase item to any row
• Create multiple levels of sub-tasks
• Track  threaded discussion on any row
• See your sheet in Calendar and Gantt views
• Set Alerts and Notification on any row that keep you abreast of changes happening
• Get discrete updates on pieces of your sheet via email
• Get a consolidated report across many sheets

It’s the perfect union between spreadsheets, project tools and file sharing sites.

Video Tour

We’re excited to announce that Zimbra support for BlackBerry Enterprise Server 5.0 (BES 5.0) will be generally available with the release of Zimbra Connector for BlackBerry Enterprise Server 6.5 (ZCB 6.5) in the first half of Q4. For companies that want a better alternative to frustrating traditional email platforms, Zimbra is the first alternative to offer full support for the latest BlackBerry Enterprise Server.

ZCB 6.5 will add platform support for BlackBerry Enterprise Server 5.0 and BlackBerry Enterprise Server Express 5.0, providing native synchronization of mail, address book, calendar and tasks in BlackBerry devices. ZCB 6.5 will also provide support for Windows Server 2008 (32- and 64-bit).

Last month, we opened up the ZCB 6.5 Beta Program and received tremendous interest from customers of all shapes and sizes — from SMBs with 25 mailbox deployments to enterprise customers and hosting partners with 50,000+ mailbox deployments. The feedback we are receiving from customers participating in the ZCB 6.5 Beta Program is extremely positive and really shows us how great the demand is for BES 5.0 support.

Here’s what our customer Thomas Klaube, CTO of Ertel & Friends Multimedia GmbH had to say: “Our employees are often on-the-go and need full-featured mobile access to collaboration tools, so we are really excited that Zimbra is leading the way in support for the latest BlackBerry platform. We joined the ZCB 6.5 Beta Program and were up and running in no time.”

Zimbra is committed to continued support of the latest and greatest BlackBerry platforms and we’re really thrilled to be the first alternative email and collaboration platform to offer customers native integration with BES 5.0 and BES Express 5.0.

Stay tuned for the official ZCB 6.5 release date!

To learn more about ZCB, click on the links below:
http://www.zimbra.com/products/blackberry-enterprise-server.html

http://www.zimbra.com/downloads

VMworld is just around the corner, and not only is it VMware’s most important event of the year, it’s also shaping up to be big for Zimbra too.  We will be exhibiting with our new organization for the first time, showing off the new Zimbra Appliance and talking a lot more about the future of Zimbra and VMware together.

On the later point, we also want to provide an opportunity for attendees and customers in the general vicinity to hear about the Zimbra roadmap and provide us directional feedback away from the bustle of the show floor.  As such we are having an Advisory Meeting and breakfast on Wednesday September 1st.  The meeting is offsite at the W Hotel, so both show attendees and non-attendees are welcome.

Topics will include ZCS 7.0 features, Zimbra Appliance and Zimbra Desktop plus a round table discussion with the Zimbra product leadership team.

Date:     Wednesday September 1, 2010

Time:     8am – 10am

Location:     W Hotel, San Francisco

Space is limited and breakfast will be served, please RSVP to confirm your space and room location to: events@zimbra.com.

Also – for those planning on attending VMworld please remember the Tech Exchange where you can learn about Zimbra APIs, building Zimlets and more from the Zimbra product and development teams.

Please note if you cannot make the Advisory this time we will continue to host more in the future at major events!

Zimbra Desktop 2.0 Beta 4 has just been released. Zimbra Desktop is a free and open source email client application that gives you on- and off-line access to all your email accounts in one place. Whether you use Zimbra, Gmail, Yahoo! Mail or Microsoft Exchange, Zimbra Desktop greatly simplifies your inbox experience.

A detailed list of ZD 2.0 enhancements is available at the Zimbra Product Portal. If you are coming from an earlier ZD 2.0 Beta, one of the bigger differences you’ll notice is Zimlet support. We’ve included Zimlets like Email Reminder and everyone’s favorite Social. And you can install additional ZD compatible Zimlets via the Preferences area.

Download links are provided below. Please comment, submit feedback and questions via the Community Forums, or make use of Bugzilla to file confirmed bugs and request enhancements.

Enjoy!

Download Zimbra Desktop 2.0 Beta 4

• Windows: zdesktop_2_0_beta4_b10514_win32.msi (MD5)
• Mac OS: zdesktop_2_0_beta4_b10514_macos_intel.dmg (MD5)
• Linux: zdesktop_2_0_beta4_b10514_linux_i686.tgz (MD5)

Documentation

• Installation & Setup
• Release Notes
• FAQ

2010 has been a busy year for the Zimbra team since we joined VMware in February.  And today, we are excited to announce the launch of the Zimbra Appliance.

The Zimbra Appliance is our first major step post acquisition to integrate Zimbra and VMware products and provide a simplified IT experience for administrators and their users.  We have spent the last 5 months speaking with VMware and Zimbra customers and re-affirming their need for a simplified collaboration software stack that embraces the IT Platform of the future.

The call for simplicity reflects changes in the overall IT landscape driven by the evolution of user, administrator and datacenter requirements – many of these inspired by events in the consumer market.   Whether it is the simplicity of the Amazon Kindle, the open platform of Facebook or the cross platform support of Twitter, users and administrators expect applications to be easier to use and deliver than ever before.

Here is a summary of market drivers influencing the launch of Zimbra Appliance:

User:

Users want applications to be available on any device, anywhere and anytime.  These applications need to be available using traditional desktop clients and via the browser.  The collaboration cloud is a hub for communications: regardless of device, the user has the context he needs to make decisions — like what flights to take, which purchase orders to accept/reject, or what information should be synced with the CRM system. Additionally, users want to be able to share information with co-workers, partners and other external users.  Ted Schadler at Forrester recently wrote about this need to empower users.

Based on these needs and core to the Zimbra Appliance is our support for Zimbra Desktop, an offline cache of the user’s collaboration cloud, and our browser-based support for desktop, touchpad and mobile browsers.  Additionally, we continue our support for legacy email clients (Microsoft Outlook) and a wide range of mobile devices (iPhone, Android and BlackBerry).

Administrator:

Administrators’ requirements have also changed and now require a simpler application stack that is easier to deploy, manage and update.  Administrative innovations from companies like Saleforce.com and Successfactors have made it easier to deploy, manage and update applications that provide web-based administration tools and a complete software stack (application, operating system and update tools).

As part of offering a collaboration cloud as a complete software bundle, administrators are able to deploy the Zimbra Appliance in under 10 minutes.  Beyond a quick set up, the Zimbra Appliance provides administrative tools for self-service, auto update, security policy control and the ability to remotely wipe a mobile device wipe.

Datacenter:

The last key change in the IT market that is driving simplification is that organizations want to deploy applications in a private or public cloud.  In order to maximize flexibility and drive down the total cost of ownership, applications need to be portable and provide support for standards-based virtualization (OVF) and cross platform back up tools.

The Zimbra team has worked closely with hosting providers like Hosting.com and Contegix as well as many small businesses to make sure that the Appliance can be easily moved from private to personal clouds.  Additionally, the Zimbra Appliance supports VMware’s Data Recovery so that administrators can manage multiple applications with a common back up and recovery tool.

This is just the first step on our efforts to integrate with other VMware products and continue our mission is to simplify IT and to provide a collaboration cloud that can run anywhere.  Stay tuned for more updates in the coming months.

Check out a video of the Zimbra Appliance for more information:

We’re excited to be part of our first VMworld, where we’ll take center stage to showcase Zimbra products.

August 30-September 2 at Moscone Center, San Francisco
October 12-14, Bella Center, Copenhagen

VMworld is a great chance to keep up on the latest technology trends, with over 300 different breakout sessions and labs on topics like leveraging the cloud, virtualizing enterprise applications and managing the desktop as a service. It is also a great opportunity to meet with knowledge experts or join group discussions with peers and industry experts. And, you’ll hear presentations from VMware leaders along with outside guest speakers. Plus you won’t want to miss the band. Last year was Foreigner, can you guess who it is this time? (Hints: + 30 million records; 7 top Billboard hits).

Below is a list of the Zimbra activities that we have planned. If you have not already signed-up and you would like to attend this year’s event, click on any of the links below to get to the registration pages. We hope that you can join us at VMworld 2010!

Sessions

Breakout Speakers:

1. “Lessons from the Cloud: How Application Clouds Are Evolving to Meet New End User, Administrator and Datacenter Trends” – John Robb PC8326
2. “Zimbra and The Future for Mission Critical Apps in the Virtualized Enterprise” – Jon Dybik EA8210

Tech Exchange for Developers (requires additional registration):

1. “Zimbra Deployment Best Practices, Virtual Application Benchmarking and Performance Versus MS Exchange” – Anup Patwardhan & Charles Windom ADD06
2. “Developing and Deploying Custom Zimbra User Interface and 3rd Party Integrations” – Raja Rao ADD05

Education

Hands-On Lab Activities covering everything from an intro of the Zimbra Collaboration Suite to advanced server management. LAB05

Product Demos in the VMware Booth

Genius Bar (serving up knowledge on whatever you want to discuss)

Theater presentations

 
So come meet the team! It’s a great experience, not to mention some other good reasons you should go.