Zimbra now Yahoos! thoughts

[LMStone]

Originally Posted by jholder

Hi all-
We've decided to do a conference call with anyone who wants to call in, both Open Source and Network Edition.

Our CEO, Satish as well as several others will be there and we will be fielding questions and comments from you about Zimbra.

We're compiling a top 10 list of questions/comments that have been posted to this thread which we will address.

It is scheduled for 2 PM PST.

Call in info:
1-866-266-3378 (Call This Number)
650 212 0511 (When it asks for a conf ID, enter this number)

John

John,

That's a great idea, I'll try to be there.

Also, just to be straight about it, Satish is not the ultimate boss any more. He is presumably a Yahoo employee (hopefully with a good contract) who reports to a Yahoo executive.

If at all possible, it would be helpful to have Satish's boss on the phone as well please, so we can hear what we need to hear from the folks who wrote the big check and who now own -- and control -- Zimbra.

Sorry for the late post; I don't check the Zimbra Forums like I check my email.

All the best,
Mark

P.S. As a former mergers and acquisitions investment banker, I don't fault Zimbra at all for taking the money. The VCs put up $30.5 million as I understand it and are getting more than 10 times their investment back in just a few short years. In this environment where the public markets have a great deal of uncertainty, that's a fabulous deal. Kudos to Zimbra on the deal front.

[JoshuaPrismon]

drat. Saw this too late, and didn't make the call. Did anyone here make it? (2:00PST correct)?

[jholder]

Thanks everyone for joining our Call today. We're very pleased with the turnout on such short notice.

A couple followups to make sure that major questions are answered.

1. No Ads in either the Network Edition or Open Source edition.
2. Source code and binaries will still be available.
3. Still Open Source? Yes.
4. If applicable, we'll be shipping Yahoo Zimlets, but you may customize them as you see fit.
5. Yahoo Mail for consumers and Zimbra will be two separate units. Zimbra will not replace yahoo mail or vice versa.
6. Outlook 2007 Connector stuff will not be delayed because of the acquisition. It will be available as soon as possible.
7. Community will stay in tact. Zimbra employees are locked in for 3 years.

If you have other questions or comments, please post them. We'll get to them as soon as we can.

No changes in anything are expected until ZCS 5.5.

Hope this helps clear up things,
john

[dijichi2]

damn damn damn, i thought PST was 9 hours behind me, must be only 8 hours!
oh well, thanks for the updates john.

despite all the reservations voiced here, which I share, congrats to Zimbra for creating such a great product and earning lots of money from it! this is one of the very few cases in tech where a buyout is richly deserved purely from a tech point of view.

[langs]

Pity about the such short notice, didn't allow for international clients to be present.

While I have grave concerns where this is going I have just resigned for another year, however I was going to sign up for an additional 3 years.

Will take a wait and see approach.. First sign of a smiley or Yahoo toolbar in my suite and I'll dump it.

[easytouch]

zimbra had in March 6 Million paid mailboxes (plus the 12 million Comcast option)... hm...
If i do a very very rough calculation I take 6 million x 15 USD (25 USD plus some discounts for the big ones in the mix)....

So it feels like Yahoo has just paid 2-3 years of revenue.
(but hey, I am just a silly technican. So please tell us your thoughts - "Would you have signed the deal if you were Zimbra?")

On my second day realising the 'deal'... (this word tastes like a dirty coin you know...) ;-)
my very subjective feeling is, that Yahoo got a cheap price, if they want to stop a - right now nearly exploding - competitor.

If they play well, then I will be happy to receive my christmas gift this year: Simplyfied licensing (per single NE user) and mixed mode for lowering hosting costs (OSS and NE on the same Hardware, just License control separates the features per user)...

So I will write my christmas wish list veryearly this year...
(But in the meantime our time and money investments into researching Zimlets go on hold, and go into research for the future of our small ISP route of the engine for the 'killer application number one'-email 1993-2006 qmail 2006-2007 Zimbra 2008- ???)

[LMStone]

Originally Posted by jholder

Thanks everyone for joining our Call today. We're very pleased with the turnout on such short notice.

A couple followups to make sure that major questions are answered.

1. No Ads in either the Network Edition or Open Source edition.
2. Source code and binaries will still be available.
3. Still Open Source? Yes.
4. If applicable, we'll be shipping Yahoo Zimlets, but you may customize them as you see fit.
5. Yahoo Mail for consumers and Zimbra will be two separate units. Zimbra will not replace yahoo mail or vice versa.
6. Outlook 2007 Connector stuff will not be delayed because of the acquisition. It will be available as soon as possible.
7. Community will stay in tact. Zimbra employees are locked in for 3 years.

If you have other questions or comments, please post them. We'll get to them as soon as we can.

No changes in anything are expected until ZCS 5.5.

Hope this helps clear up things,
john

Hi John,

Here's what I else I thought I heard on the call that may put some folks at ease (or not).

I asked how Yahoo expected to make a return on their $350 million investment. I thought I heard that there would be two revenue streams: the first from NE customers, just like now.

The second revenue stream I thought I heard was that Yahoo will be offering a hosted Zimbra solution itself, where users who don't want ads can pay something to have an ad-free Zimbra experience.

This same Yahoo hosting environment will have restrictions on which Zimlets can be loaded; I understood the current thinking would be that Yahoo would provide a library of Zimlets from which users could choose. The library would not offer custom zimlets nor likely zimlets like Google search due to security and competitive reasons, respectively.

I also thought I heard that partner pricing for NE licenses would be at an attractive enough price point so that companies like ours that offer hosted Zimbra will still be able to do so profitably, even though we will effectively be competing against Yahoo.

John, please feel free to correct or clarify anything above; the connection on the call was not always the best.

With best regards,
Mark

[bigmudcake]

My thoughts are,

Will this affect code in Zimbra that use Yahoo's competitors. e.g. google searching, links to google calendar etc.

Also will this prevent Zimbra from making google zimlets.

One thing that attracted me to Zimbra was its independence from the major players allowing cross compatibility.

[jholder]

Originally Posted by bigmudcake

My thoughts are,

Will this affect code in Zimbra that use Yahoo's competitors. e.g. google searching, links to google calendar etc.

Also will this prevent Zimbra from making google zimlets.

One thing that attracted me to Zimbra was its independence from the major players allowing cross compatibility.

Hi Bigmud-
Well, we believe in eating our own dogfood (search wikipedia for that). Since we're a part of yahoo, we'll be using their search. However, that DOES NOT stop community members from updating/changing Zimlets for the provider of your choice. We'll even put them in our gallery for others to use, if you submit it.

As we launch 5.0, we'll be launching a renewed effort to ensure that the community knows how to build zimlets. Plus, if you ever need help hacking an existing zimlet. . .well I'll be here, and so will others

john

[bigmudcake]

Originally Posted by jholder

Hi Bigmud-
Well, we believe in eating our own dogfood (search wikipedia for that). Since we're a part of yahoo, we'll be using their search.

Correct me if I am wrong Does Zimbra currently use google for search.

Will Zimbra software allow admins to change the default search that Zimbra uses to another engine like google. Of course installation default would be yahoo

Also I remember that one of the Zimbra team did a Gmail style theme - will that be forgotton, and will the Zimbra team be allowed that kind of freedom in the future ?

Please dont get me wrong regarding Yahoo, I have been using their online portal (email/calendar/briefcase) for many years and find their system excellent, particularly bookmarks, tabbed emails, finance (share portfolio) and toolbar integration.