Zimbra vs. Gmail for Business

[hfranco]

Sorry to make this post controversial (potentially), but I am just starting to evaluate products from both vendors and I was wondering if anyone has had real world experience with both? My goal is to move from Dovecot (IMAP) and Squirrelmail. Any insight would be greatly appreciated, thanks!

By the way, we are a small to medium (230+ email users) company.

[bofh]

if you wanna hand out 230 users (and maybe living or dieing of your compnay) to google and simply hope they are relyable, unhackable and in case of a disaster as fast and suportive as you need it go for it :-)

This is kilelr argument number one i think.
btw zimbra is not a simple webinterface / a zuimbra server is much more
and i never heard about syncing blackberrys with google but i might be wrong about that one :-)


from my personal view: even if google or any other BIG service can do much better than my personal solution (doenst matter if that soplution is zimbra or something else) i would nbot go for it

shure the probability of a desaster might be bigger (since google and co have higher budgets for failsave/server/cluster/security and backup ) BUT
in case of the case if i do it myself i am priority #1

maybe if youre a big customer at a small hoster compnay same might count here too but defenetly not for google.. hell i dont even have a phone number from someone i could reach if all my mailboxes are closed


btw every tried google translastion service? this is maybe the future of google services and its unuseable, every second word is a popup add no thanks

better spent a lot of money a lot of work and end up maybe with less features (not the case but i would accept it) but my data and my service is on my own.


btw do you know every google technican with access ? how shure you can be that your companys secrets are not sold to someone. if another company can make lets say a million if they get all your data dont you think it MIGHT BE POSSIBLE they find some underpaid backup administrator who is handing out a copy of a tape?

shure it might be not so easy at it sound, and maybe this case will never happen but if it does youll probaly never hear about and maybe not even recognize (just wondering why the other compnay bid you 1 cent under your offer :-)

shure your own server could be hacked.. but at least ife noone there with a 24/7 access


and if you think my thougs are impossible you maybe right but remeber the swiss banks who lost their data of cleints and account (sold to german tax deparment for 2 million euro)
do you think google will handle (or is able to) data of an free public internetservice better and more carefully than one of the biggest switz banks with billions on the line?

honestly i dont have the answer .. but i dont need it since i stick to my own solutions ....

[Krishopper]

I've had real world experience with both, and they each have their own benefits. Personally, I've leaned toward Zimbra quite a bit.

Gmail: Remotely hosted, generous storage, free (assuming you're using the free version - although I don't know if you can with 230 users or not), don't have to worry about your own servers/hardware, they have a great spam filter.

Zimbra: You run your own environment, great web user interface, Zimlets, you can do some cool things with the API, each version comes with new features - I haven't seen a new feature in Gmail for quite a while.

You can get the best of both worlds if you host your mailboxes with a Zimbra Hosting Provider (see the Zimbra Partners page). There may also be other providers you can find on Google that aren't Zimbra Partners (such as myself, I also host on the Open Source edition for much cheaper pricing, but also guaranteeing uptime and recovery windows in the case of a disaster).

The best feature of Zimbra for companies is the GAL and the Calendar, and the ability to quickly and easily collaborate (share folders, etc.) and work together.

So I guess you just have to weigh out the pro's and con's of each, see what's more important to you, and base it on that. The best of both of them is that they're not Exchange or Scalix

[phoenix]

Gmail[/B][/U]: Remotely hosted, generous storage, free (assuming you're using the free version - although I don't know if you can with 230 users or not), don't have to worry about your own servers/hardware, they have a great spam filter.

It's biggest drawback is that all your (confidential) data belongs to Google to use as they see fit.

[chenthil]

Yeah , Specially true , if we are handling banking or finance related project

[bofh]

any internal data can have a bigger thread as you might think.
you can even a sub sub suplier of a big name and beeing target because of that ... you never know so be ever shure

[ewilen]

Right, to amplify what's been said, even if you think you're a small target, if you're sharing a service with many other companies, then that service is a big target for hacking and internal subversion.

I haven't looked at Google, but that's basically why.

[bofh]

Also another thing.
If you go to a hosted service for zimbra and that company is in your country you can solve many lega issues (if they are willing for such contracts)

so at least for the court you can make shure that IF some of their admins sells your data you can do something by court - because of this you can be shure that (hopefully:-) this hosting company will take precautions that this will not happen (like an usb port wired on 30kg explosives lol)

no seriously, against google on the other hand ... hmm ... court... do i have to say anything about that ? .... fighting a hungry shark with a butterknife have higher odds that this :-)

btw : here we go into a thematic the most small to medium companys and even a lot of big ones avoided now for the last 20-years....
data security, legal asurances against emplayes (did you knwo most data get stolen by them or at least trough them because they not aware..)

so even if you say you do it on your own because of security .. its would be a nice oportunity to rethink security related stuff ..

but ok here we go into deep water..

[bofh]

Additional Note:
Some of you may think,.. hey this is just theoreticall or that guy suffer a paranoia but to qote kurt cobain: "Just because you're paranoid don't mean they're not after you" :-)

Let me tell you a little story. Im sorry i cant get into details but here the short version:

i told a friend of me (boss of a medium company which is developing something) hey you have to do a lot to secure your data, it might be expensive but nessesary..
Nothing happend.. "..ah no real danger nothing will happen..."

2 Years ago one employe run with their dev data to another company.

Result:
Investment of 3 Million Dollar is gone.
over 25 Employees lost their job.
Company is closed.
Btw: The Company was much more woth than 3 million.. but now its about zero
(there are a lot of interesting details but sorry no data by me :-)


thats not a tale,.. that happend 2 years ago..
and belive me story like this will happen more and more often within the next 10 years... so time to think about