Tomorrow the VMware and Zimbra team will be hosting a live webinar covering some key differences between Zimbra and Google Apps.   It will be quite informative and an opportunity to ask questions of the Zimbra team; here is the webinar information from the Zimbra Webinar Series:

If you cannot attend in person tomorrow, a recording will be available about a week after.   Please be sure to visit our webinar page where you can find it as well as other upcoming webinars; here is a tentative upcoming webinar list:

Jan 19th
Zimbra vs. Google Apps

Feb 9th
Zimbra 7.0 Launch – Live Demo

March 2nd
Zimbra vs. GroupWise

March 16th
Zimbra vs. MS Exchange

Zimbra partner Irontec of Spain recently posted a new Zimlet integration for SugarCRM in the Zimbra Gallery called “zSugar“.  This is allows end users to attach email correspondences to an Account, Contact, Opportunity or Project.

Feel free to try it out and provide your feedback, the Irontec team has deployed this with several customers already and plans on releasing an RC candidate shortly.  (Note the screen capture on the right is Spanish, but the UI is localized in English and Catalan as well).

For those less familiar with the category of CRM <—> email integrations, zSugar is similar to the Salesforce Zimlet currently available for Salesforce.com in the Zimbra Gallery which allows end users to manage their leads and customers more efficiently by not making them log in to the CRM each time records need to be updated.  (Missing correspondences in CRM records are the bane of many in sales and support, so reducing friction is critical).

SFDC Zimlet picture below:

Belgacom, Belgium’s largest telecommunications company, recently announced the launch of Zimbra Appliance for its business customers. Zimbra Appliance will be offered to Belgacom customers in both public and private cloud configurations, enabling customers to run Zimbra Appliance either within their own datacenter or via the Belgacom datacenter, where the application is hosted as a service.

The addition of Zimbra Appliance to the Belgacom public and private cloud offering brings small- and medium-sized businesses, as well as larger organizations, a leading, high qualitative email, calendaring and collaboration service. The launch of this new solution fits in the cloud strategy of Belgacom datacenter services by providing an alternative for outdated mail environments at a cheaper price.

Belgacom’s customers join over 60 million Zimbra users at over 150,000 organizations around the world.

To learn more about Zimbra Appliance click on the links below:

http://www.zimbra.com/products/zimbra-appliance.html

http://www.zimbra.com/downloads/

As part of our continuing effort to simplify IT for administrators and end users, we have integrated VMware’s vFabric Hyperic application performance monitoring technology with Zimbra Appliance.

Now offered as part of Zimbra Appliance and requiring no additional set up, Hyperic gives Zimbra administrators the ability to more rapidly pinpoint, correct, and prevent application performance problems wherever they occur in the application infrastructure. As a result, administrators have up-to-the-minute insight into a comprehensive set of performance metrics related to availability, throughput and utilization that enables them to alert team members on a wide range of issues and to rapidly determine root cause.

Additional benefits for VMware vSphere customers who are running Zimbra Appliance include:

• Rapid diagnosis of performance problems
• Advanced alerting
• Automated problem resolution

We will keep you posted as we continue in our mission to provide out-of-the box next generation collaboration solutions that simplify IT.

For more information on Zimbra Appliance and vFabric Hyperic, follow these links:

http://www.vmware.com/products/zimbra/

http://www.vmware.com/products/springsource-hyperic/

We are pleased to announce the general availability of Zimbra Desktop 2.0!  This is a major milestone for the Zimbra team and includes significant feature and performance upgrades.  The difference between Desktop 1.0 and 2.0 is enormous thanks to the millions of downloads, thousands of forum posts, and hundreds of bugs posted by Zimbra customers and community members.

As most readers of this blog know, Zimbra Desktop is a completely unique client.  It’s the only free, cross-platform tool allowing you to meld your worlds on or offline – storing and syncing your email, calendar, contacts, files and documents in the cloud, yet having them locally accessible when on the road.  And now, in Zimbra Desktop 2.0 we have also added management of your Facebook and Twitter accounts.

Of course, Zimbra Desktop is also a valuable complement to the Zimbra Web Client and Zimbra Mobile because it provides organizations the exact same user experience on or offline, thus resulting in no productivity loss as users switch between applications.

Zimbra Desktop 2.0 builds on that success with significant advancements for End Users…

• In addition to the robust list of features already supported, we’ve added read-receipts, email filtering, tabbed compose, mandatory spell check, three-pane reading view, calendar fish-eye view, and shared access to email folders, calendars, address book and briefcase.
• Desktop already simplifies our lives by aggregating multiple email accounts (Zimbra, Yahoo! Mail, Gmail, AOL,  Hotmail, etc.). Now it adds the ability to aggregate Social accounts (Facebook, Twitter, Digg, etc.) into the same single user interface.  This is the first and only online/offline Enterprise-grade client that offers aggregation of multiple accounts for email, calendar, contacts and social. It is the true inbox for the way we work today.
• Desktop’s integrated support for the Zimlet Gallery means users have one-click access to 100+ productivity tools: Meebo, Google Translator, sticky notes, email reminders, email templates and many more.

… and for Administrators:

• Desktop 2.0 lowers help desk and IT costs by deploying the same application on Linux, Mac and Windows and by having a consistent user experience across web client, mobile client, and desktop client.
• Desktop 2.0 promotes easier back-up and restore, given all of the data and settings are backed-up in the cloud.
• Nearly limitless extensions and personalization without IT headaches through the one-click Zimlet Gallery integration.

Given the high download rates of Zimbra Desktop 2.0 beta and release candidates, we assume many Zimbra Desktop 1.0 users have already upgraded.  However, if you haven’t already installed Zimbra Desktop 2.0, existing 1.0 users should note that these significant changes have resulted in changes to the underlying database schema and installation procedures. Translation: Zimbra Desktop 2.0 will be a fresh install on your computer and trigger a re-sync – be sure to read the upgrade notes.

Again, many thanks to the community for its continued support of Desktop. See Zimbra Desktop for more details or to download Zimbra Desktop today!

We are headed to Anaheim for this year’s EDUCAUSE Conference next week and we are really looking forward to seeing everyone!   Since last year, we have started a new chapter as part of VMware and we have been working to integrate our products and channels to continue to bring you innovative, open source email and collaboration services that set the standards for web-based collaboration in the cloud.  We have a lot of events planned for this year’s conference, and we’d like to invite you to join us to hear more about our product roadmap, share you feedback, get a sneak peek at some upcoming new features, and enjoy an evening of great food and jazz music, New Orleans style!

Visit the VMware/Zimbra Booth (#941)

We’ll be showcasing the new features that will launch in the upcoming ZCS 7.0, Desktop 2.0 and Zimbra Connector for BES 5.0  releases later this year.  You’ll see these new features along with demos of some of the other VMware products so stop by and see us in Booth #941.

Join the Zimbra Advisory Meeting on Tuesday, 10/12

Please help us shape the future of Zimbra.  You are invited to our Zimbra Advisory Meeting to discuss and share your feedback on our product roadmap and future releases.  If you have not already replied, please RSVP by Thursday, 10/7 to reserve your seat.

• Date: Tuesday, October 12th
• Time: 1-3 pm
• Location: Sheraton Anaheim Hotel (900 South Disneyland Drive, 1.5 miles from the Anaheim Convention Center)

Transportation: A shuttle will be provided. Please meet at 12:30 PM at the Shuttle Stop in front of the Hilton Anaheim. The shuttle bus will be clearly marked indicating the destination as the Sheraton Anaheim Hotel. At the conclusion of the event, the shuttle will take you back to the Convention Center for the opening reception of EDUCAUSE 2010.

Space is limited, please RSVP by October 7th to:  events@zimbra.com

Customer Appreciation Dinner on Wednesday, 10/13

We cordially invite you to spend an evening with great friends, jazz music and food at Ralph Brennan’s Jazz Kitchen.  If you have not already replied, RSVP by Thursday, October 7 to reserve your seat.

• Date: Wednesday, October 13th
• Cocktails: 6:30pm – 7:30 pm  (in the Courtyard)
• Dinner: 7:30pm – 10:30 pm (in the Parlor Room)
• Location: Ralph Brennan’s Jazz Kitchen (Downtown Disney District)

Space is limited, please RSVP by October 7th to events@zimbra.com

Panel Discussion

Please join us for our discussion on “Next Generation Collaboration, the Cloud and Virtualization: How to Transform and Simplify IT”, moderated by our very own Greg Armanini on Thursday, October 14th at 1pm in Room#210A.

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

We’re excited to be part of our first Open World Forum (September 30th and October 1st, Eurosites Georges V, Paris), where we’ll take center stage to showcase Zimbra products.

The Open World Forum is the world’s leading summit meeting bringing together decision-makers and communities to cross-fertilize open technological, economic and social initiatives to build the digital future. Beyond the forum itself, it hosts several ambitious initiatives. It also delivers and debates each year the 2020 Free Libre and Open Source Software Roadmap.

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 the Open World Forum in Paris!

Seminar slot in Open IT Showroom:
“Lessons from the Cloud: How Application clouds are evolving to meet New End User, Administrator and Datacenter trends” presented by Lars Ronning on September 30th from 11:30am to 12:00pm. openworldforum.org/attend/agenda

Round table:
“Vision For The Cloud: Open Cloud – Empowering the digital future” with Lars Ronning on September 30th from 2pm to 3pm. openworldforum.org/attend/agenda/open-cloud-conference

Come and meet the team!

How often do you spend extra time searching for the document that you want to attach to an email, or even worse you forget to attach the document before you hit send? The Drag and Drop Zimlet saves you time and makes it really easy. All you do is drag the files that you want to upload directly from the desktop to the Mail composer and drop them into your email. It’s that simple!

Back in 2007 Zimbra released the first version of a Firefox 2.0 extension and an accompanying Zimlet to make the mundane task of uploading effortless. We just couldn’t stop there, and contemplated multiple ways to bring this great feature to many clients. Browser Plus was considered, but deep down many of us were really more excited about HTML5’s upcoming possibilities – especially its advantage of not requiring the user to install more add-ons. Fast forward to 2010 and that specification is now a reality.

How to Enable the Drag and Drop Zimlet: Go to Preferences > Zimlets > check the box for “DnD” > save & reload your web-client.

How to Use Drag and Drop with your Documents: Select one or multiple files on your computer. Then simply bring them into the Mail compose window and release them onto the message below the subject line that reads: “Tip: Drag and drop files from your desktop to add attachments to this message”.

Your browser goes to work uploading:

Attachment is complete and a draft is auto-saved:

Download:
The Zimlet comes bundled in the latest server editions and desktop betas but you can also grab it here: http://gallery.zimbra.com/type/zimlet/drag-and-drop-attachments

Release Notes:

1. The previously XPI plugin is no longer needed with the use of HTML5 in modern browsers, just the Zimlet itself.
2. Compatible with ZCS/ZCA 6.0 (ZD 2.0) and newer.
3. Supported by the following browsers:

• Firefox 3.6+
• Chrome 4+
• Safari 4+ (Mac)

A quick video of the Zimlet in action:




Coming soon: The ability to insert dragged images directly into body, addition to the lite/standard client, and briefcase support for the new HTML5 compatible Zimlet.

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