WooHoo "Zimbra Secures $14.5M in Strategic Series C Funding"

[FastEddy760]

Congratulations Guys!

http://www.zimbra.com/about/zimbra_pr_2006-04-06.html


Keep up the good work!

[jholder]

Good Job you guys.

I always knew you were better than those guys at scalix.



Keep up the good work.

[mintra]

I am sure that this is a good thing, for Zimbra and everyone else, however I would not congradulate someone on being able to borrow some money.

What would help is if Zimbra was to build into a real alternative to what is currently avaible, as a long term sustainable product.

I can help feeling that to get this funding someone has done a spreadsheet and put in a quantity of projected sales x and multiplied it by a revenue per sale y.

The sales people, then have to sell for y to keep the scheme right.

I think x would be higher, if y was less.

This Zimbra experience reminds me of Cobalt, I suppose a Cobalt result would be good for the team at Zimbra and the orginal investors.

And I suppose at the end of it we did get bluequartz.org which is useful. But as the Cobalt interface was not truely open source to start with no one really mastered the sausalito environment (or has ever heard of it).

I expect the same would happen with Zimbra if they do not get the y right.

This is a shame.

In the mean while I do feel a very tiny bit guilty, for getting the open source version and the support from Zimbra through the forums. For zero cost.

Thanks anyway and good luck.

[FastEddy760]

I *am* congratulating them on borrowing money! And since your 30 days behind the release of this news, I would suspect your not up to date on money matters, nor really have an interest in this area.

Please tell me how you expect Zimbra to "build into a real alternative to what is currently avaible" without money?

sustainable - adjective able to be maintained at a certain rate or level • Ecology (esp. of development, exploitation, or agriculture) conserving an ecological balance by avoiding depletion of resources.

"I can help feeling that to get this funding someone has done a spreadsheet and put in a quantity of projected sales x and multiplied it by a revenue per sale y."

DUDE! Write my business plan, I could use a CFO like you. Also send these guys an email,
http://www.zimbra.com/about/investors.html
They could use someone with your biz dev knowledge so they don't make any mistakes in the future.

Serious, this is in fact great news, and based on your comments, your not familiar with the way the process takes place.
Here is a quick rundown -
You have a great idea, in this case to do something already done, add to it, improve what is out there, involve the community, and poor every ounce of capital and minutes of your day to bring it to life. After you convince your closest friends and family it works, you ask for money and begin to release builds. Fast forward to your max'd out credit cards, selling your sports car, and paying for bandwidth so anyone can download your latest release, and you hire a smart guy that can't setup his own email to go ask people for money so you can keep the lights on. Every check that Mr Smartguy brings in, allows you to hire another body to increase speed of the new machine, or team that your building. Now you have someone who keeps all the developers boxes running, with the new pipe into the office so they can send email without timeouts, and also setup the Smartguy's email so he can make his flight to the next meeting. Its a vicious cycle, that is called startup, and its fueled by cash and the desire to make a difference.

Be happy for them, it is much much much more work than a spreadsheet. When you go to work, think about the effort that goes into setting budgets so have you the 28 pens that you lose in the coarse of a year, that you have the new MacBook Pro to develop on, and that the biz itself, has what it needs in order to make the right choices so you don't have to look for a job in 3 months.
Ever take a vacation without putting gas in the tank to get there? Money, or funding is what allows you to bring out the next rev. These guys are not in an apartment, read the profile for each staff member listed, I did, months ago, before the first install at my customers.

This is also a huge statement for the economy in general. If Zimbra is getting funding, then someone has funds to invest, and its in the tech field where you and I work. The bigger the industry gets, the more you and I can make as we learn about tools like Zimbra, for free, to be their experts. Its a beautiful cycle that helps you, and me in the end. And, I'm honored they can make a buck in the end, buy a new sports car, better than the one they sold to give you that free download.

There was a time in my life where two jobs did not bring in enough money to pay for the startup I was involved in. A mere $2000 dollars helped so much. The next checks were in the 5 figure range, and they keep growing from there. My excel sheets had over 300 hours in them and I'm a idiot with financials.

[dijichi2]

This Zimbra experience reminds me of Cobalt, I suppose a Cobalt result would be good for the team at Zimbra and the orginal investors.

good lord i hope not. zimbra make a genuinely groundbreaking, great product. cobalt produced appalling little plastic junk boxes (computer equivalent of mcdonald happy meals) which sun thankfully killed. i would hope that zimbra have greater aspirations, eg. exchange killer, rather than something to sell into obscurity and make a quick buck.

In the mean while I do feel a very tiny bit guilty, for getting the open source version and the support from Zimbra through the forums. For zero cost.

why?? i use the opensource version and give zimbra feedback, bugfixes, enhancements (ok, well not yet , and also pay for the network version for other installs. for corporate installs you'd be irresponsible to use the open source version, great business model as far as i can see.

[iansbrainstorm]

I believe the open source model attracts people who are early adopters and the more open source users the better. I think a small business compared to say Microsoft needs to leverage their development from their user base. I bet a lot of people that use the free version either upgrade to get the outlook connector or recommend the paid version to businesses. If anyone is going to take on the giants in the industry they need all the support they can get from end-users and giving away free versions is cheap to get the testing evangelising and feedback done, I may be wrong.