Press Release

Media Contact:
Liz Clinkenbeard
OutCast Communications
(415) 392-8282
liz@outcastpr.com

Mobility, Powerful Administrative Tools, and Reduced Total Cost of Ownership Drive Growth for Zimbra in Academic Institutions Across the Globe

Administrative Control and Groundbreaking Features Meet Needs of Students, Faculty, and Staff

SAN MATEO, Calif. - October 11, 2006 - Zimbra, the leader in open source, next-generation collaboration and messaging software, today announced that it has experienced tremendous growth in the education sector, with increasing momentum among higher education institutions, primary schools and secondary schools around the world. To date, more than 50 educational institutions have deployed the Zimbra Collaboration Suite (ZCS) internationally.

"Innovative offerings like customized branding and lower total cost of ownership than legacy solutions are just a couple of the reasons why we have received an incredible response from the education sector," said Satish Dharmaraj, Zimbra co-founder and CEO. "Features such as mobile synchronization, Documents creation and sharing, and Outlook compatibility are critical for faculty and staff, while our rich Web-based interface appeals to students, and our easy-to-use back-end tools simplify deployment and management for administrators."

"We looked at many software options before selecting Zimbra as our electronic collaboration solution. Zimbra had the best cost/benefit for us given its comprehensive approach to email, group calendaring, ldap integration, and its spam and anti-virus features," Keith Fowlkes, CIO- Saint Mary's College of Notre Dame, Indiana. "Zimbra has far and above the best user interface of any other solution we found and gives us the ability to quickly and easily develop and integrate our own applications within its Zimlet functionality. All of this with its low cost point and wide variety of mobility features made it a clear choice for us."

Recent educational deployments around the world include:

  • Delaware State University
  • Saugus Union School District, Los Angeles
  • United World College of Southeast Asia (Singapore)
  • University of Alabama, Birmingham
  • University of Bern (Switzerland)
  • University of Hawaii

Zimbra offers educational institutions a unique set of end-user and administrator benefits, and the flexibility to deploy different classes of services to different users within the school environment. Key benefits of the ZCS for educational deployments include:

  • Varying class of service specifications for students, faculty and staff
  • Two-way synchronization with Outlook, Apple iCal, Apple Address Book, and other offline clients
  • Web document authoring and sharing, allowing faculty and students to share course materials
  • Over-the-air synchronization to a wide range of mobile devices
  • Lower total cost of ownership (TCO) than legacy solutions
  • Ability to leverage a single collaboration platform for all users
  • Innovative, open source platform
  • Rich Web 2.0/Ajax user interface for end-users
  • Strong Internet-based security (SSL/TLS for all protocols)
  • Extensibility via Zimlets and Web services for creating mash-ups
  • Advertising capabilities that allow institutions to promote and advertise to any or none of their user groups
  • Compatibility with a number of operating systems

Pricing and Availability

The ZCS 4.0 Open Source Edition is free. The commercially-supported ZCS Network Edition is available for a 60-day free trial on the Zimbra Website. ZCS 4.0 Network Edition is available at a significant educational discount by contacting sales@zimbra.com. The Network Edition includes product support as well as software subscriptions to new releases, updates and patches. ZCS is available on-premises or as a hosted service; for information about Zimbra On-Demand or Zimbra's hosting partner program, please visit http://www.zimbra.com/partners/. Users can discuss topics related to the Zimbra Collaboration Suite and provide feedback at http://www.zimbra.com/forums/.

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. The Zimbra Collaboration Suite was voted Best Enterprise Project in the inaugural 2006 SourceForge.net Community Choice Awards and received a SIIA Codie award for Best Communication or Collaboration Solution. More information and software downloads are available at http://www.zimbra.com.

NOTE: Zimbra is a trademark of Zimbra, Inc. All other trademarks belong to their respective companies.