Press Release

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

Zimbra Demonstrates Growing Momentum With Universities

Universities worldwide 'go back to school' with scalable, compatible, innovative open source collaboration suite

SAN MATEO, CA - June 5, 2006 - Zimbra, a leader in open source, next-generation collaboration and messaging software, today announced that a number of higher education institutions - both within the United States and internationally - have chosen the Zimbra Collaboration Suite (ZCS) to meet their email and calendaring needs. This momentum reflects the success of the company's market expansion, as well as demand within the education vertical for innovative and cost effective messaging solutions like Zimbra's flagship product, the Zimbra Collaboration Suite (ZCS).

"We're thrilled with the response of the education community to Zimbra," said Scott Dietzen, Zimbra's CTO. "We've innovated to solve the unique user and administrator problems at universities, and are happy to offer a product scalable to tens of thousands of mailboxes, which is compatible with a broad range of desktops - including Windows and Macs - and which provides a first-class messaging and collaboration experience."

"One of the key factors in our choice of an email and calendaring product was the ability to cost effectively deploy the technology campus wide," said Greg DeYoung, Associate Director for Campus Infrastructure Technology, Eastern Illinois University. "We were confident in Zimbra's ability to support both Macs and PCs on a large scale at a compelling TCO, which made the decision an easy one. Further, the ZCS has enabled us to differentiate between classes of service, supporting Microsoft Outlook and Apple iSync for faculty and providing a compelling AJAX client for students."

In addition to offering a number of vital attributes to business customers, the ZCS offers a range of key benefits to education customers, including:

  • Varying class of service specifications for students, faculty and staff
  • Ease of scalability
  • Ability to support Outlook, Apple iSync and other offline clients
  • Compatibility with a number of operating systems
  • Innovative, open source platform
  • Rich Web 2.0/Ajax user interface for end-users
  • Over the air syncing of Windows Mobile phones (Treo 650 and more)
  • Strong Internet-based security (SSL/TLS for all protocols)
  • Extensibility via Zimlets and Web services for creating mash-ups

"We selected the Zimbra Collaboration Suite because it is a perfect match for our needs and it has a compelling total cost of ownership," said Rick Holbert, Linux System Manager, Ohio State University's Center for Human Resource Research. "From basic messaging functionality to browser, mobile and offline client support like Outlook and Apple clients the technology gave us what we needed now, and promised ease of growth in the future."

Other Zimbra agreements with higher education institutions around the world include:

  • Saint Vincent College
  • Universidad Francisco Marroquin, Guatemala
  • Harvey Mudd College
  • United World College of South East Asia, Singapore
  • University of Delaware Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry
  • Delaware State University

"In our search for a new collaboration system, we evaluated a number of options - from proprietary systems like Microsoft Exchange to Zimbra's open source alternative - and in the end, Zimbra was the obvious choice," said Manoel Oliveira, Director of IT, Florida International University College of Business Administration. "We educate the brightest and best students here, and we need an innovative collaboration system to match."

Pricing and Availability

The ZCS 3.1 Open Source Edition is free, and the commercially-supported Network Edition is available with significant educational discounts by contacting sales@zimbra.com. The Network Edition includes full product support as well as software subscriptions to new releases, updates and patches. Both editions can be downloaded at http://www.zimbra.com/. Users can discuss topics related to the Zimbra Collaboration Suite and provide feedback at http://www.zimbra.com/forums/. A comprehensive feature list is also available.

About Zimbra:

Zimbra dramatically improves the messaging and collaboration experience for administrators and users. Zimbra achieves this by investing in innovation, open source, and compatibility with existing applications and systems. The Zimbra Collaboration Suite supports Windows, Apple, and Linux platforms and works with Microsoft Outlook as well as other PC and mobile clients. Additionally, Zimbra provides an AJAX browser based client that delivers rich, secure, anytime access for anyone within the enterprise. More information and software downloads are available at www.zimbra.com.