Zimbra

Last updated

Zimbra Collaboration
Developer(s) Synacor
Initial releaseJuly 26, 2005;18 years ago (2005-07-26)
Stable release
10.0.6 [1]   OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg / 29 November 2023
Repository
Platform Linux
Type Collaborative software
License Zimbra licensing
Website www.zimbra.com

Zimbra Collaboration, formerly known as the Zimbra Collaboration Suite (ZCS) before 2019, is a collaborative software suite that includes an email server and a web client.

Contents

Zimbra was initially developed by LiquidSys, which changed their name to Zimbra, Inc. on 26 July 2005. [2] The Zimbra Collaboration Suite was first released in 2005. The company was subsequently purchased by Yahoo! on September 17, 2007, [3] and later sold to VMware on January 12, 2010. [4] In July 2013, it was sold by VMware to Telligent Systems [5] which changed its name to Zimbra, Inc. in September 2013. [6] It was then acquired by Synacor on 18 August 2015. [7]

According to former Zimbra President and CTO Scott Dietzen, the name for Zimbra is derived from the song "I Zimbra" by Talking Heads. [8]

Edition

The software consists of both client and server components, and at one time also offered a desktop email client, called Zimbra Desktop. Two versions of Zimbra are available: an open-source version, and a commercially supported version ("Network Edition") with closed-source components such as a proprietary Messaging Application Programming Interface connector to Outlook for calendar and contact synchronization. [9]

The now discontinued Zimbra Desktop was a full-featured free desktop email client. [10] Development was discontinued under VMware's stewardship in 2013 but was restarted in February 2014, but was ended again by 2019. The web client featured an HTML5 offline mode starting with version 8.5. [11]

The Zimbra Web Client is a full-featured collaboration suite that supports email and group calendars. At one time it featured document-sharing using an Ajax web interface that enabled tool tips, drag-and-drop items, and right-click menus in the UI. Today it has document sharing, chat, and videoconferencing. Also included are advanced searching capabilities and date relations, online document authoring, "Zimlet" mashups, and a full administration UI. It is written using the Zimbra Ajax Toolkit. [12]

The Zimbra Server uses several open source projects (see the section, Included open source projects ). It exposes a SOAP application programming interface to all its functionality and is also an IMAP and POP3 server. The server runs on many Linux distributions. [13] On other, non-Linux operating systems it can be run using a virtual machine and using container technology. It supports CalDAV, CardDAV and SMTP for messaging, LDAP for directory services, and Microsoft Active Directory (AD). Zimbra uses Postfix for its MTA functionality. It includes technology from ClamAV, SpamAssassin and DSPAM for anti-malware features and S/MIME for email signing and encryption. OS X Server support was dropped with version ZCS 7.0.

Zimbra can synchronize mail, contacts, and calendar items with open-source mail clients such as Mozilla Thunderbird and Evolution and also with proprietary clients such as Microsoft Outlook and Apple Mail, either through proprietary connectors or using the ActiveSync protocol, [14] both available exclusively in the commercially supported version. Zimbra also provides native two-way sync to many mobile devices. [9]

Software license

The closed source variant Network edition is distributed under the Zimbra Network Edition EULA.

Starting with version 8.5 the Zimbra source code is available under the terms of the GNU General Public License version 2 (backend) and the Common Public Attribution License version 1 (frontend). [15]

Previous versions were released under the Zimbra Public License (ZPL). The Free Software Foundation accepts the license as being a free software license and refers to it as being identical to the Yahoo! Public License with the exception that Zimbra, Inc. provides the license, rather than Yahoo!. [16]

Included open source projects

The Zimbra Server uses open source projects such as: [17]

It previously used:

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mac OS X Server</span> Server software for macOS

Mac OS X Server is a series of discontinued Unix-like server operating systems developed by Apple Inc. based on macOS. It provided server functionality and system administration tools, and tools to manage both macOS-based computers and iOS-based devices, network services such as a mail transfer agent, AFP and SMB servers, an LDAP server, and a domain name server, as well as server applications including a Web server, database, and calendar server.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Microsoft Outlook</span> Email and calendaring software

Microsoft Outlook is a personal information manager software system from Microsoft, available as a part of the Microsoft 365 software suites. Though primarily being popular as an email client for businesses, Outlook also includes functions such as calendaring, task managing, contact managing, note-taking, journal logging, web browsing, and RSS news aggregation.

Kolab is a free and open source groupware suite. It consists of the Kolab server and a wide variety of Kolab clients, including KDE PIM-Suite Kontact, Roundcube web frontend, Mozilla Thunderbird and Mozilla Lightning with SyncKolab extension and Microsoft Outlook with proprietary Kolab-Connector PlugIns.

The comparison of mail servers covers mail transfer agents (MTAs), mail delivery agents, and other computer software that provide e-mail services.

Telligent, A Verint Company is an enterprise collaboration and community software business founded in 2004 by Rob Howard. The company changed its name to Zimbra, Inc. in September 2013 after acquiring Zimbra from VMWare. In August 2015, Verint Systems, Inc. acquired Telligent and currently operates Telligent as an independent business unit. As of August 2015, the remaining assets of Zimbra were acquired by Synacor.

Bynari is a defunct company based in Dallas, developing server and email software, mainly known for its Insight Family, similar to Microsoft Exchange Server with Outlook.

VMmark is a freeware virtual machine benchmark software suite from VMware, Inc. The suite measures the performance of virtualized servers while running under load on a set of physical hardware. VMmark was independently developed by VMware.

EGroupware is free open-source groupware software intended for businesses from small to enterprises. Its primary functions allow users to manage contacts, appointments, projects and to-do lists. The project releases its software under the terms of GNU General Public License (GPL).

Z-Push is a FOSS implementation of the Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync protocol which is used to synchronize email, personal contacts and other items between a central server and a mobile device.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Zarafa (software)</span> Discontinued free and open-source groupware

Zarafa was an open-source groupware application that originated in the city of Delft in the Netherlands. The company that developed Zarafa, previously known as Connectux, is also called Zarafa. The Zarafa groupware provided email storage on the server side and offered its own Ajax-based mail client called WebAccess and a HTML5-based, WebApp. Advanced features were available in commercially supported versions. Zarafa has been superseded by Kopano.

O3Spaces is a document management system developed by O3Spaces B.V.. It is built by a team of software engineers based in the Netherlands using OpenOffice.org, StarOffice, and ODF-centric applications as enterprise office and collaboration solutions. The product is written in Java, and based on the Tomcat server with a PostgreSQL backend. O3Spaces works by providing users a single web-based team environment, with built-in search capabilities and an optional Desktop Assistant. Its search functionality is said to work across PDF, ODF, and Microsoft Office document formats. Currently Firefox, Internet Explorer and Safari are supported.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Feng Office Community Edition</span>

Feng Office Community Edition is an open-source collaboration platform developed and supported by Feng Office and the OpenGoo community. It is a fully featured online office suite with a similar set of features as other online office suites, like Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, Zimbra, LibreOffice Online and Zoho Office Suite. The application can be downloaded and installed on a server.

Exchange ActiveSync is a proprietary protocol designed for the synchronization of email, contacts, calendar, tasks, and notes from a messaging server to a smartphone or other mobile devices. The protocol also provides mobile device management and policy controls. The protocol is based on XML. The mobile device communicates over HTTP or HTTPS.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">GroupWise</span> Messaging and collaborative software platform

GroupWise is a messaging and collaboration platform from OpenText that supports email, calendaring, personal information management, instant messaging, and document management. The GroupWise platform consists of desktop client software, which is available for Windows,, and the server software, which is supported on Windows Server and Linux.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kevin Henrikson</span>

Kevin Henrikson is a San Francisco-based engineer, speaker, and investor. Henrikson has worked for or headed several companies, such as Zimbra, Alpha Brand Media and Acompli.

Kopano is an open-source groupware application suite originally based on Zarafa. The initial version of Kopano Core (KC) was forked from the then-current release of Zarafa Collaboration Platform, and superseded ZCP in terms of lineage as ZCP switched to maintenance mode with patches flowing from KC. Kopano WebApp similarly descended from Zarafa WebApp. Since October 2017, Kopano Core is also known more specifically as Kopano Groupware Core, since Kopano B.V. developed more products that were not directly requiring groupware components.

References

  1. "Release 10.0.6". 29 November 2023. Retrieved 19 December 2023.
  2. "Patent US20090100073 - System and method for enabling an external-system view of email attachments". google.je. Retrieved 22 February 2016.
  3. "Yahoo! Inc. - Company Timeline". Wayback Machine . 13 July 2008. Archived from the original on 13 July 2008. Retrieved 13 February 2017.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
  4. Vance, Ashlee (13 January 2010). "VMware Gently Nudges Microsoft with a Zimbra". New York Times Bits Blog. Retrieved 30 May 2010.
  5. Henry, Tiffany (15 July 2013). "Telligent Acquires Zimbra from VMware". Telligent. Retrieved 15 July 2013.
  6. Henry, Tiffany (25 September 2013). "Zimbra Unveils Integrated Team, Culture and Vision for People-Centered Collaboration at User Group Conference". Telligent. Retrieved 15 December 2013.
  7. "Synacor Agrees to Acquire Zimbra, a Leading Provider of Open Source Based Email and Messaging Software" (Press release). Global News Wire. 18 August 2015. Retrieved 18 August 2015.
  8. Dietzen, Scott (12 September 2005). "So what's a Zimbra?". Zimbra Blog. Retrieved 17 January 2013.
  9. 1 2 "Zimbra Compatibility with Other Desktop Clients". VMware Zimbra Official Web Site. VMware Zimbra. Archived from the original on 28 December 2013. Retrieved 8 January 2013.
  10. "Zimbra Desktop". VMware Zimbra Official Web Site. VMware Zimbra. Archived from the original on 20 October 2010. Retrieved 8 January 2013.
  11. "Zimbra Collaboration 8.5: Anytime, Anywhere, Any Device". Zimbra Blog. Zimbra. 26 August 2014. Retrieved 5 March 2015.
  12. "Zimbra Documentation for the Zimbra Web Client". VMware Zimbra Official Web Site. VMware Zimbra. Archived from the original on 8 September 2015. Retrieved 8 January 2013.
  13. "Zimbra Open Source". Zimbra Official Web Site. Zimbra. Archived from the original on 12 November 2020. Retrieved 8 January 2013.
  14. "Exchange ActiveSync(EAS) Outlook 2013". Zimbra Official Wiki. Zimbra. Retrieved 5 March 2015.
  15. "OSI Licenses for Zimbra Collaboration Open Source Edition". Jon Dybik. 4 June 2014. Retrieved 5 June 2014.
  16. "Various Licenses and Comments about Them". Free Software Foundation . Retrieved 8 July 2011.
  17. "Zimbra Components" . Retrieved 16 July 2014.