Zimbra Collaboration Server 5 Technical Guidance, including phone support and support portal/self-help resources, will end of life on March 31, 2012. Customers are encouraged to upgrade to Zimbra Collaboration Server 7 to enjoy the benefits of the new features and support options. More Info >>>

Zimbra will offer phased support from the general availability of a new Major Release. Please keep current with product updates to ensure no interruptions in your support services. (Visit the Downloads page for all product updates.)

• General Support will be provided for three years from general availability of a Major Release. Support includes bug and security fixes and technical support services.

• Technical Guidance will be provided for an additional one year following General Support. Primary assistance is available through the self help pages. Customers can also open a support request online to receive operational/configuration support and recommended workarounds for low-severity issues on supported configurations only. (Telephone support is not provided.) There will be no new security patches or bug fixes. The phase is intended for usage by customers operating in stable environments with systems that are operating under reasonably stable loads.

Register this Wednesday, February 29th for Top 10 Reasons to Virtualize Zimbra on vSphere – Live Webinar

<< Register Here >>

Your IT needs are growing and evolving and virtualization is a key to your growth. There are significant benefits of placing business critical applications such as email and collaboration in a virtualized environment. Join our LIVE webinar and hear the Top Ten reasons to virtualize VMware Zimbra on vSphere.

Some of the topics covered include:

• The challenges of business continuity and disaster recovery with email platforms
• How virtualization addresses and simplifies business continuity and disaster recovery
• How Zimbra on vSphere simplifies BC/DR implementation & testing
• Overview of our tests and results
• Q&A Session with Zimbra Product Team

Your IT needs are growing and evolving and virtualization is a key to your growth. There are significant benefits of placing business critical applications such as email and collaboration in a virtualized environment.

Don’t forget to register for this month’s webinars:

Thursday, February 23rd for Altimeter Group founder and author Charlene Li, and Socialcast founder Tim Young for a webinar to discuss the new Altimeter Group report “Making the Case for Enterprise Social Networks.” Whether you’re looking for information on where to get started or already have an enterprise social network implemented, find out how to make the most of the biggest shift in communications and IT platforms since email.

<< Register Here >>

Wednesday, February 29th for Top 10 Reasons to Virtualize Zimbra on vSphere discussing how virtualization is the key to simplify business continuity and disaster recovery. Hear how we have tested and implemented our findings.

<< Register Here >>

Our partners at Smartsheet just passed their one year anniversary of launching an integration with VMware Zimbra.  And looking back, we’ve seen a strong increase in Zimbra users embracing the online project management and collaboration app.  In fact, Smartsheet continues to be a favorite, now ranking as a “Top 5 Most Popular App” in the Zimbra Zimlet Gallery. Smartsheet now claims more than 100 joint customers with Zimbra!

For Zimbra users, Smartsheet serves as the perfect union between spreadsheets, project tools and file sharing. While most work projects take shape as a spreadsheet, they break down when you need to get others involved. There’s no way to easily track versions, much less associate notes, share files, set reminders and so forth. Smartsheet allows Zimbra users to keep the spreadsheet layout you like (and already know how to use) and gain the additional automation you need.

For Smartsheet, the momentum is exciting because Zimbra customers typically represent larger enterprise deployments and provide a higher average contribution to the bottom line. That’s smart business.

Why the uptick in momentum?
In addition to solving a real business need, here are a few other reasons that contribute to the popularity of the combined solution:

• Extends the functionality of both apps. The apps are a natural fit. You can show key project dates in Zimbra or overlay a Zimbra calendar directly to a project calendar in Smartsheet. In one click, you can import Zimbra contacts into Smartsheet for easy collaborating and sharing sheets. You can also attach documents from Zimbra briefcase to any row. The apps make each other more useful, valuable.
• Convenient access. With Smartsheet available as a tab within Zimbra, access is seamless and easy. No more having to navigate to a separate web application.
• Scales for enterprise. The combination of Smartsheet’s cloud app being “always available” with the viral nature of “sharing sheets” causes adoption to spread organically across the organization. And because it’s so flexible to set up and use, we’re seeing teams from project management to marketing, operations, HR processes, and sales pipelines, all embrace the tool. After all, everyone has work to manage.
• Provides admin controls and security safeguards required by larger organizations. Most simple web apps don’t offer provisioning controls at a centralized level. Smartsheet is “enterprise ready”, providing group tools for onboarding and monitoring users, transferring ownership of content and managing data access. Providing the ability to self-manage the deployment and ongoing maintenance of accounts and content is definitely one of the must-haves for apps to succeed in larger settings.

Thank you Zimbra community. While Smartsheet’s momentum encourages us, we understand we’ve just scratched the surface. We’re committed to working closely with Smartsheet — and all of our integration partners — to create more value for VMware Zimbra customers.

We are looking forward to seeing everyone at this year’s EDUCAUSE 2011 Conference in Philadelphia!  We have a lot to share with you this year as we continue in our mission to deliver technologies and infrastructure that enhance the way people work in the post-PC era.

We’re especially excited to show you a sneak peek of what is coming in ZCS 8.0 and an early preview of our new file sharing application, Project Octopus.  And, we’d like to invite you to our VMware Cocktail Reception on Tuesday evening.  This year we’ll be in historic downtown Philadelphia at Del Frisco’s.  Also, please stop by and see us in booth #1439.

VMware Zimbra Roadmap Presentation on Tuesday, 10/18 at 2:30 PM

Please join us for the Zimbra Roadmap Presentation on Tuesday, October 18^th at 2:30 PM.  During this Roadmap presentation, you will learn more about the exciting new features being developed for our biggest release ever, ZCS 8.0! You’ll get a sneak peek at some of the new features including priority inbox, social mail, calendars with activity streams and new self-service administration tools. You will also get an early preview of our new secure, cloud-based file sharing application, Project Octopus, designed to transform the way people collaborate.

Space is limited, please RSVP by Friday, October 14th to reserve your seat.

Date and Time:
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
2:30-4 PM

Location:
Maggiano’s Little Italy
Napoli Room
1201 Filbert Street
Philadelphia, PA 19107
215-567-2020

VMware Cocktail Reception on Tuesday, October 18 at 6:30 PM

You are cordially invited to the VMware Cocktail Reception on Tuesday, October 18th in Philadelphia, PA.  This year, we have selected a great spot in the heart of the Center City Philadelphia at Del Frisco’s in the historical First Pennsylvania Bank Building. We look forward to spending an evening with great friends over cocktails and Hors d’oeuvres!

Space is limited so please RSVP by Friday, October 14th.

Date and Time:
Tuesday, October 18
6:30-8:00 PM

Location:
Del Frisco’s
1426 Chestnut Street
Philadelphia, PA 19102
215-246-0533

Visit VMware Zimbra Booth #1439

We’ll be showcasing ZCS and Project Octopus, along with demos of the other VMware products like View, Fusion, vSphere and SlideRocket.

We thank you for your continued support and feedback and we look forward to seeing you in Philadelphia!

As we continue in our mission to develop technologies and infrastructure that improve the way people work in this post-PC era, we are previewing at VMworld Las Vegas a new file sharing app – Project Octopus – that advances our vision for combining end-user freedom with IT control.

Project Octopus will enable users to access files from any device and share them with people both inside (other colleagues) and outside (vendors, customers, partners) their companies in a completely safe and secure way.  Additionally, IT leaders will have control to apply access and security policies and intelligently manage data that is old or out of date.

In our research, we found that 80 percent of files in a collaboration system are not accessed after more than two years. Octopus will automatically identify these orphaned files, warn their owners, and if it never hears back, it expires those files and deletes them.

Project Octopus promises to be super easy to deploy; it plugs in to your existing infrastructure and will come with a wide range of extensibility options that can integrate with your existing business applications. Also Octopus will work with other products within the VMware End-user Computing portfolio including VMware Zimbra, VMware View, VMware Horizon and Project AppBlast.

It really addresses the challenges that IT has today…users need a way to easily and quickly access their files on their tablets, smart phones, laptops and home desktops and do this in a way that’s safe and secure.

If you are interested in participating in the upcoming beta of Project Octopus, go to vmwareoctopus.com and enter your email address.  Keep checking back on the End-User Computing blog for updates.

August 29-September 1 at The Venetian in Las Vegas
October 18-20, Bella Center, Copenhagen

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We are just three weeks away from VMworld 2011 and we are looking forward to showcasing Zimbra products, including a sneak peek of ZCS 8 and some new products we are working on!

VMworld 2011 is a great way to learn about the latest technology innovations with more than 175 breakout sessions and labs-featuring topics that will cover everything from virtualizing business critical applications to integrating social collaboration tools that enhance productivity.  Plus, VMworld offers additional learning opportunities, such as the Knowledge Experts Program, numerous networking events, and the Solutions Exchange, featuring over 250 companies.

Whether you’re new to VMworld or have attended before, VMworld 2011 is a great way to learn about the latest technology innovations and network with your peers and industry experts.  And, you won’t want to miss this year’s party with the band, The Killers!

Below is a list of the Zimbra activities that we have planned. If you have not already registered and you would like to attend this year’s event, click on the link below to get to the registration page.  We hope to see you at VMworld 2011 in Las Vegas!

Speaking & Group Sessions

1. VMware Zimbra: Next Generation Collaboration for Your Cloud: John Robb & Sam Khavari
2. Plan, Build and Deliver a VMware Zimbra Cloud Application Business: Jing To & Azdio Ballesteros
3. VMware Zimbra: Better Than Exchange: Jon Dybik
4. Zimbra the New SMB Game Changer: Paul Murphy
5. Zimbra Group Discussion: John Robb

Education & Hands-on Lab

1. Exploring your Core Email and Collaboration Services Migration Options: Anup Patwardhan & Azdio Ballesteros

VMware Booth

• Product Demos in the VMware Booth Genius Bar
• Theater presentations
• Meet the team!

To register for VMworld click here!

Exciting news! We’ve just release VMware Zimbra Collaboration Server 7.1 and I thought I’d take a few minutes to explain the details behind the release.

Some may have been expecting a typical maintenance release (i.e. 7.0.2), and 7.1 is primarily comprised of the bug fixes and enhancements you would expect in any maintenance release from Zimbra. So why the special 7.1 version? We’ve done some important plumbing to set the stage for a few new features coming later in the year as well as added internationalization enhancements to improve localization for Japanese customers.

What are these new future features you ask? Namely, S/MIME encryption and support for smartcard authentication. I know many in the community have noticed the activity in Bugzilla around S/MIME, so we’ve reved the minor version to indicate a sign of good things to come. The release however does not include any changes in behavior or big ticket features that you need to spend weeks figuring out in a lab. So all you 6.0.x and 7.0.1 customers, 7.1 is your next install.

Here are a few important links to more information and the actual bits themselves.

At VMware we are singularly focused on helping our customers transform their IT environments into a cloud that can deliver IT as a Service.  A lot has changed in the IT market over the last few years with the proliferation of tablets, iOS devices, browser based applications and pay as you go services.  VMware is committed to providing IT organizations the tools needed to deliver IAAS, PAAS and SAAS services to their users.

As part of this commitment, VMware increased its investment in Zimbra during 2010 in order to accelerate the release of Zimbra 7 – the newest version of our collaboration platform.  Zimbra provides users with a collaboration cloud for accessing personal and shared information wherever you are while providing IT the controls to back up and secure the information.

The first thing you might notice about this announcement is that we are releasing all three of our core products – VMware Zimbra Collaboration Server (formally Zimbra Collaboration Suite), along with beta versions of VMware Zimbra Collaboration Appliance (ZCA) and VMware Zimbra Desktop (ZD).  Going forward, we are committed to releasing future offerings of VMware Zimbra concurrently as a single platform.

We believe that this commitment to a single platform provides huge benefits to both VMware Zimbra end-users and administrators.

• For our users, this means that if you are online or offline, on a BlackBerry, iPhone or laptop, it won’t matter. You will always have a consistent experience with Zimbra.  Users will have access to their cloud of information wherever they go.

• For IT Administrators, you get more deployment options and control. As always, you have the choice to deploy in a private cloud or in the public cloud. Zimbra 7 is controlled using a simple web based administrative console that can be installed in less than 10 minutes.

Zimbra 7 has 230 new enterprise-grade features, including data sharing, expanded calendaring and search functionality, and even better management tools. Our goal with Zimbra is to increase end user productivity, open the platform and improve manageability.

Some of the new capabilities the team developed for VMware Zimbra 7 include:

Share more, send less:

• File Sharing – VMware Zimbra 7 includes access to Zimbra’s Briefcase functionality, which allows users to easily share or store files in the cloud.  Zimbra 7 enables lightweight document management with added control directly from within Zimbra. You can upload and access multiple versions of a Briefcase file or document, and new “check-in” and “check-out” controls further simplify document management and collaboration.

Simplified management:

• End-user Self Service – Zimbra has long been committed to easier system administration, and Zimbra 7 is no exception. In addition to features such as distribution list management controls and simpler functions for load balancing, system automatic recovery, and zero downtime hardware maintenance, Zimbra 7 also provides new options to allow users to serve themselves rather than calling IT. For instance, a user can restore his own deleted items even after he has emptied his trash. Zimbra 7 is also our most robust delivery ever, with over 2000 bugs fixed and performance and scalability improvements as well.

Manage your inbox:

• Increased productivity – Our team also spent a lot of time rethinking the mailbox and calendaring. Calendaring updates enable new workflows to coordinate appointments and schedule meetings among multiple people. The Scheduling Wizard helps users suggest times, rooms, and resources to all attendees simultaneously – taking location and time zone into account – making it easier to coordinate schedules with a large number of users.

As always, you can download Zimbra Collaboration Server 7 (formerly Zimbra Collaboration Suite) along with beta versions of VMware Zimbra Desktop 7 and VMware Zimbra Appliance 7 at http://www.zimbra.com/downloads.