Press Release

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Amy Swanson
OutCast Communications
(415) 392-8282
aswanson@outcastpr.com

Zimbra Simplifies Integration of Messaging and Web Technologies with Zimlets

Zimlets make collaboration come alive, providing general tools for integrating third-party content - CRM data, HR systems, etc. - into the collaboration experience of end users

SAN MATEO - Jan. 23, 2006 - Zimbra (http://www.zimbra.com), a leader in open source, next-generation collaboration and messaging, today introduced Zimlets, a mechanism for integrating the Zimbra Collaboration Suite (ZCS) with third-party information systems and content.

"Zimlets are an extension of Zimbra's efforts to change the way that users and administrators interact with e-mail and messaging systems," said Satish Dharmaraj, founder and CEO of Zimbra. "They simplify the marriage of Web 2.0 technologies to enterprise messaging and collaboration, enabling users to benefit from live message content linked to Web content and services on intranets or the Internet."

Zimlets can automatically provide integrated links to external data sources such as customer support and CRM systems; inventory management, manufacturing control and accounting systems; trading and risk management systems; and HR systems.

Zimlets also enable fully actionable e-mail content. Users can:

  • Right-click on a phone number to make a call with a soft-phone (i.e., Skype, Cisco VoIP phone);
  • Right-click on a date to schedule a meeting;
  • Right-click on a name, address or phone number to update an address book;
  • Right-click on an airline reservation to print a boarding pass;
  • Right-click on an equity to trade;
  • Right-click on a part number to view the details of current inventory; and
  • Right-click on a purchase order, provisioning request or other internal workflow request to approve or reject it, among other things.

Zimlets offer a different approach than traditional e-mail applications in that they transfer the onus of recognizing information as interactive from the message author to the receiving system. Rather than requiring the sender to tag text as a URL or e-mail address, the receiving e-mail system recognizes the strings and links them for ease of user action, regardless of the source.

"We developed Zimlets in direct response to our customer and our community feedback," said Ross Dargahi, Founder and VP of Engineering, "Zimlets provide enterprises with an easy and flexible model for integrating disparate applications and information systems with the Zimbra Collaboration Suite."

Past approaches to extensible linking and actionable content technology have relied on client-side installation and execution of the linking and action-defining code. Zimlets deliver a number of capabilities that these technologies do not, including:

  • The ability to leverage the richness of AJAX, allowing for mash-ups of multiple user interfaces;
  • Compatibility with any standard Web browser and any client operating system, without the installation of any software;
  • Functionality across client devices which support the Web (i.e., mobile phones, PDAs, tablet PCs, set-top boxes);
  • Object recognition across mailboxes, due to server-side execution/recognition of actionable objects;
  • Increased security, due to an AJAX-based model which routes requests through a secure, managed server that can proxy a client's security privileges as appropriate;
  • Ability to run under a protected execution model - similar to JSPs and Servlets - in a way that prevents them from inadvertently or maliciously interfering with other system processing;
  • Mouse-overs, which allow users to mouse over text to preview actionable content (i.e., inventory status can be seen when mousing over a part number, a map can be seen when mousing over a physical address); and
  • Reduced client-side computation overhead, due to the performance of pattern matching and linking on the server side.

About Zimbra:

Zimbra is committed to innovation in enterprise messaging and open source, and compatibility with an enterprise's existing messaging investments. Zimbra's flagship solution, the Zimbra Collaboration Suite, was designed to improve the administrator experience by providing online backup and recovery, hierarchical storage management and clustering, all as native capabilities of the system. Additionally, the company's flagship solution supports end-users with Windows, Linux and Apple PCs. The Zimbra Collaboration Suite also supports users with Outlook, providing an alternative user interface through an AJAX-based browser application. For more information, please visit http://www.zimbra.com.