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!
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:
Posted in News, Partners by Donna Kuker on July 22nd, 2010
Telenet, one of the largest internet providers in Belgium, recently announced the rollout of a new webmail platform developed in collaboration with Zimbra. Since April 2010, Telenet has been providing access to the new system for over 1 million residential internet subscribers and will continue the migration through August 1st. The updated email suite – which is free to Telenet customers – provides 5 GB of storage, a built-in calendar and address book, many advanced tools like sharing, automated importing of external mail accounts, plus more features to come.
Previously, Telenet internet customers had a basic mail utility and minuscule quota space of 50 MB. The new interface, powered by Zimbra, is extremely user friendly and is supported by 100x more storage. Other improved features include the ability to set up rules for filtering incoming mail and access to a mobile browser version. Several factors, including lower disk costs and the broadening availability of both virtualization and cloud applications made it possible for Telenet to make this update available to its customers. (One such distributed object storage framework is from Bizanga/Scality, who developed a connector for Zimbra, and has a video on Telenet’s strategy here.)
According to Saskia Schatterman, Executive Vice President Residential Marketing, no less than 70% of their customers use Telenet email on a regular basis and just over half report that account is their primary address. Those customers can now send mail anywhere, from any device with Internet access; putting aside the need to also use alternatives like Hotmail or Gmail. With this cutting-edge webmail architecture, Telenet can provide all of their broadband customers with a sophisticated and full featured product, that’s still simple to use.
The rollout of the advanced Telenet email platform is phased, all existing internet customers will automatically be granted access to the new communication suite and will be notified once their mailbox has been transitioned. Brand-new users will receive access to the Zimbra webmail client by default.
With this integration Zimbra continues to deliver on its promise of providing hassle-free collaboration solutions to our partners around the world. We look forward to sharing news about additional international organizations in the coming months.
In today’s climate IT departments are under a lot of pressure to cut costs yet maintain services that don’t compromise on features. So it’s no surprise we hear more and more the questions, “How does Zimbra total cost-of-ownership (TCO) compare with Microsoft Exchange?” In fact, it recently hit #3 on our popularity chart as organizations contemplate Exchange upgrades again (we’ll save the top two questions for another day).
Public field data typically shows Zimbra Collaboration Suite ahead of MS Exchange Server when licensing and hardware costs are compared for various on-premises deployments. However, while licensing and hardware cost data is readily available, perhaps the most significant recurring cost components in the equation are less well documented — additional time spent administering servers and software and the high cost of support contracts.
This cost differential often gets hazy because most organizations do not closely log time spent on specific tasks, including software administration or escalated user support issues. Instead, in most circles you simply hear something analogous to “my Exchange servers are really cranky.” But how much valuable productivity are you actually losing?
It turns out at EDUCAUSE when we caught up with the University of Pennsylvania (Penn) they shared some great field data with us on this very topic from their own TCO case study.
Exchange
Zimbra
Users
3,100
13,700
FTEs
3.2
2.2
User/FTE
969
6,227
Per User Cost
$7.5
$3
Above: Penn admin resource distribution and resulting monthly per-user costs charged back to departments
According to Adam Preset, an IT Technical Director in Information Systems & Computing (Penn’s central IT organization), Penn’s IT Services added Zimbra 18 months ago to provide departments across the campus a Web 2.0 option in addition to Microsoft Outlook and Exchange 2007 (Zimbra can share Active Directory, resources and free-busy times with Exchange). Today their split-mode deployment consists of 3,100 Exchange users and 13,700 Zimbra users (each with grad students, faculty and employees) running equivalent feature sets (email, calendaring, sharing, mobile, etc).
Split-mode deployments are not uncommon (see Argonne National Labs), but in the case of Penn, the central IT staff’s administration time is closely logged on each system because they charge back time for service rendered to the other departments. Combined with a single team managing both systems simultaneously in split-mode and you have a natural control for cost data.
Adam says they have found Zimbra takes significantly fewer man-hours to administer. In absolute terms Exchange servers take 33% more effort and require one extra full-time headcount per year — even with 4.4 times more users on the Zimbra servers.
Here is a video where Adam discusses their deployment, cost methodology and why more users chose Zimbra over Exchange on campus:
Adam later noted, “to bring the Exchange user base up to Zimbra’s scale and provide the expected level of support we’d need to hire new administrators – probably two or more FTEs, which isn’t practical.”
He also added that common culprits impacting costs in the Microsoft deployment are Outlook client and PST data issues, more support needs on the desktop due to lack of adoption of Outlook Web Access (OWA), Exchange data restores and more frequent server downtime. Whereas advantages for Zimbra are easier overall server administration and fewer help desk incidents because so many users say they prefer the Zimbra AJAX Web Client over traditional desktop clients.
So what’s the key take-away? Though every organization has different cost sensitivity; data points like this serve as gentle reminders not to forget the whole picture. While a license discount or storage price drop can be helpful for initial TCO calculation, the human capital component is key to understanding real long-term value!
Zimbra partner Nordicmind, recently published a case study on service provider TDC and their hosted business email deployment powered by Zimbra. TDC is a leading telephony, internet, communications, and hosting solutions provider operating in Finland, Norway, and Denmark and specializes in services for businesses; in 2009 it generated $6.6 billion US in revenue with 11.7 million total customers.
It’s great seeing partners like Nordicmind take on these larger, and often more intricate, deployments and yet another indicator of how strong the Zimbra partner ecosystem has become. There are now over 1000 VAR, HSP and distribution partners and many more on the way as our relationship with VMware flourishes.
It’s also worth noting this deployment not only entailed an upgrade to a modern collaboration platform but also a move to VMware ESX at the same time. Zimbra and VMware together offer service providers the optimal blend of advanced features, rapid scalability and redundancy they require to operate mission critical cloud services. More and more we are seeing hosting and service providers leading the charge into virtualization as the benefits become clear.
In fact, in a recent Zimbra Forum poll 38.6% of respondents claimed they are already running Zimbra on VMware which means a lot of organizations are seeing the light!
Read more in the TDC and Nordicmind case study (pdf).
Though the Holidays are in full swing and the big day less than 48 hours away, some of us here at Zimbra are just getting started on the gift giving process. So naturally we started today by checking out some of our favorite idea spots like UnCrate, Gizmodo and the Adult Swim Store.
Invariably, a visit to Apple was also in order for gadgets and Apps to use as stocking stuffers. That last bit may sound odd, but as an example, there are no fewer than four iPhones/Touches circulating now in my family and we are not alone. Not surprisingly, children will also choose a new App over anything we could bring home from the Dollar Store. So, the iTouch goes back in the stocking with Flick Fishing this year – and voila a new tradition is born. :)
Happily, during the process we discovered a new App benefiting Zimbra users who are on the go. It’s called the Aderium Companion for Zimbra (App Store URL) and it gives you access to Zimbra Tasks and Briefcase items on the iPhone or iTouch – as well as Wiki pages, a feature we haven’t built into our own mobile web client yet. It’s quite handy for viewing shared documents and creating new tasks on the go. It’s also more convenient than using the mobile browser; though it’s not free that’s a small price to pay if you like having email, contacts, calendars, tasks, wiki docs and files on your iPhone natively (i.e. Zimbra Mobile plus Aderium).
Just added to my iPhone and soon to be in my stocking… Happy Holidays!
Tomorrow in Paris, France there is an all day meet-up for Zimbra community members, partners and customers. The agenda includes Zimbra roadmap beyond ZCS 6 and will have some basics on Zimlet development with drinks to follow. It looks like a great opportunity to learn a lot and network with others in the community. There will be both English and French speakers there, be sure to check it out!
From our French friends:
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Le “Zimbra Forum France”, première réunion de la communauté Zimbra en France, est un lieu d’échange où partager idées, astuces et expérience de Zimbra. C’est l’occasion de découvrir les clés du succès de la solution de messagerie collaborative open source Zimbra auprès des entreprises publiques et privées.
Programme de l’événement
L’équipe Zimbra viendra présenter les nouveautés de la dernière version et donner un aperçu en avant première de la roadmap des versions futures. Puis, points forts de Zimbra, innovation et compatibilité seront les thèmes à l’honneur avec une présentation des technologies permettant d’intégrer Zimbra au Système d’Information, suivie d’une initiation au développement d’extensions. La robustesse de l’architecture de Zimbra sera ensuite abordée sous l’angle de la montée en charge et de la haute disponibilité. Enfin le Crédit Mutuel Arkéa présentera un retour d’expérience de sa migration vers Zimbra pour plusieurs milliers de postes.
Posted in /etc, Partners by Andy Pflaum on August 28th, 2009
During the past 5 years, Zimbra has evolved from a software company selling nearly 100% direct to customers to a model today where well over half of our sales are generated through Zimbra partners.
The channel-focused evolution has been intentional; early on we realized working via Zimbra resellers, hosting partners and systems integrators is the best way Zimbra can satisfy our rapidly growing customer base’s wide-ranging requirements while continuing to grow efficiently. With this model we’ve been able to increase the number of paid Zimbra customers to over 60,000 organizations, accounting for over 41 million paid mailboxes – the second largest number of paid mailboxes for any email/collaboration product in the U.S.
We certainly couldn’t help deploy or support this number of customers without the involvement of so many valuable Zimbra partners!
Our sales team certainly appreciates the leverage they gain by working hand-in-hand with channel partners. Given that, we believe finding new ways to work even more closely together will enhance our mutual success and take us to the next level.
Today we’re pleased to take that next step forward by announcing a new Zimbra Partner Program, featuring:
A new ‘Gold’ tier for our most advanced Zimbra partners
An updated Partner Portal with new and updated documentation, sales tools and marketing resources
Improved visibility for our top partners on the Zimbra website
New opportunities for deal registration
More Zimbra resources for co-marketing and selling
Please visit our partner website pages for further details (you may also contact or email our channels team).
In the meantime we’ve also been busy launching more than a dozen distribution relationships around the world to provide enhanced services to our network of VARs in the new Zimbra Partner Program. These new Zimbra distributors include:
Europe: Several distributors including COMMEO and D2B (France), Interactive Ideas (UK), VNC (Germany, Switzerland & Austria), VDEL (Russia and Eastern Europe), and Nordicmind (Scandanavia).
Middle East & North Africa: Opennet MEA
South Africa & Sub-Saharan Africa: Linux Warehouse
Latin America: Red Hat
Japan: We’re continuing our strong relationship with Sumitomo.
Some of the key VAR benefits from distributors include streamlined process for placing and fulfilling orders, dedicated account managers and communication channels for rapid support, and access to new payment and financing options. Our sales team will continue to work directly with our VAR partners (and as often as needed, with the end customers).
We believe the new program is right in line with Zimbra’s objectives for 2009 and beyond: continue growing our customer base and revenues, raise customer satisfaction even higher, firmly establish Zimbra as the leading open collaboration platform for businesses, governments, academic institutions and service providers, and finally deliver more than 3/4ths of our revenue and services through our channel partners.
To our existing partners: We want to say again we greatly appreciate everything we’ve done together already and believe the best is yet to come! We are already getting positive feedback, including Matthew Porter, CEO of Contegix hosting who said, “We’re really excited to be a Zimbra Gold Partner. Positive customer feedback about our solution plus more resources from Zimbra combine to enable us to better sell the product to our target market.”
For those interested in partnering with Zimbra to resell, implement or host Zimbra, we look forward to hearing from you soon!
Zimbra partner 
