MS offering to buy Yahoo ???

[raj]

Follwing up on the idea of "Controling your own destiny..."

My suggestion for “Open Source” community is to start preparing for a “contingency plan”.
Zimbra is complex software, given the history of its development it’s not easy to code and maintain the “core” zimbra.
99.9999% of code (excluding the third party packages) has been written by zimbra employees only.

There has not been huge code submissions to zimbra by “Open Source” community but the community has defiantly give a lot of input to improve zimbra.
So in short we should do at least 2 things
1) Take as much as help of zimbra employees till they are there for us.
2) Create a solid wiki with details to even switching on the computer to finishing and compiling the oss zimbra version.

** I know there are few wiki articles and stuff about setting up dev environment but I am talking about “Compiling/Maintaining Zimbra for Idiots” kind of proven tested steps, so more and more Admin’s can compile zimbra. This will give more power to zimbra admins and we will hope in future we (admins) will be able to contribute more towards the zimbra (i.e fix small bugs our self)

If we start now then we have whole zimbra team to help us put on the right track ssssshhhhh don’t tell M$

Just my thoughts..i like to be prepared NOW then just talk about for next few months.

Raj

[rusty]

I've thought about the possibility of "the people" buying Zimbra. it is an attractive idea.

There are several problems. How do you value the company? Is it worth more or less than what Yahoo paid. Assume they accept MSFT's offer. Perhaps, they'll put it up for sale and the highest bidder gets it. How do you organize several hundred thousand people to make an offer? Do they pay their share before the bid is made? What happens if they don't raise enough money, is it returned in full? It's possible I suppose, but not likely.

I'm fairly sure the SEC won't allow Zimbra to be swallowed by MSFT. If they are aware of the fact that Zimbra is one of the most significant threats to MS's lucrative Exchange Server, they will order it divested. The problem is who will make them aware of this? I say if we make a little noise to make sure they know, they will hear us.

Check out FreeZimbraNow.org

Some early thoughts are an online petition and a letter writing campaign.

[daboolz]

I'll chip in myself if this is an option. But I don't think Yahoo! will want to sell for any less than what they've paid for it.

[nrc]

Originally Posted by rusty

I'm fairly sure the SEC won't allow Zimbra to be swallowed by MSFT. If they are aware of the fact that Zimbra is one of the most significant threats to MS's lucrative Exchange Server, they will order it divested. The problem is who will make them aware of this? I say if we make a little noise to make sure they know, they will hear us.

I don't think the SEC has much to do with the anti-trust issues. The House and Senate appear anxious to hold hearings on the topic and the Justice Department normally rules on the anti-trust issues related to deals like this. The European Union could also play a role especially since they've been watching MS closely.

But your question is a good one, how do we make sure that Zimbra is a consideration in these proceedings? While we're all very impressed by Zimbra's potential as an Exchange competitor it's still small enough that it could fall in the cracks of a 41 billion dollar deal.

[rusty]

Originally Posted by nrc

I don't think the SEC has much to do with the anti-trust issues. The House and Senate appear anxious to hold hearings on the topic and the Justice Department normally rules on the anti-trust issues related to deals like this. The European Union could also play a role especially since they've been watching MS closely.

But your question is a good one, how do we make sure that Zimbra is a consideration in these proceedings? While we're all very impressed by Zimbra's potential as an Exchange competitor it's still small enough that it could fall in the cracks of a 41 billion dollar deal.

nrc, thanks for clearing up who the decision makers are. I agree that Zimbra is small enough to fall thru the cracks. The experts on Zimbra are not some other people somewhere, but everyone reading in this forum. After all, where would a Zimbra expert hang out except in a Zimbra forum?

Decision makers really rely on experts to supply the information they need to make their decisions. There is a forum dedicated to exactly this topic, take a minute to check it out. There are new posts, so if you were already there, take another look:

FreeZimbraNow - Powered by vBulletin

[pavera]

This situation has gone on too long, it has been almost a month, and still no official word from anyone inside Zimbra about the status of the software after an MS acquisition.

It is becoming more and more clear that this acquisition will go through, even though the Yahoo board rejected the offer, Yahoo is now being sued for this rejection. Microsoft has initiated a proxy battle to force the hostile takeover, all indications are that Microsoft will succeed in this bid.

I am 100% convinced that the agenda for day 1 after the acquisition closes is already written up in Redmond. Item 1 on that agenda is disband Zimbra, lay off all employees, and cease distribution of the software. They will not allow a competitor to exchange to exist.

Because of the attribution clauses in the license, it is impossible to effectively fork Zimbra. MS will own the Zimbra trademark, which is required to appear in any version of Zimbra (OSS or otherwise), MS will sue anyone for violating their trademark after the acquisition, so it will be illegal to distribute or use Zimbra. If you strip out the trademark, MS will sue you for violating the license. Zimbra has 6 months to live at most. The takeover will be completed at the latest at the June Board Election, in which MS will seat a new board and complete their proxy hostile bid takeover.

In light of this entirely hostile environment the user community needs some indication of the status of the software and legal agreements between Zimbra and Yahoo. There is absolutely zero evidence that Zimbra will be a viable piece of software in six months. Because of the "Open Source" license chosen by the Zimbra team, even the OSS version is not safe and can be discontinued the day after MS takes over. If I need to migrate my users off of Zimbra, I need to start NOW! TODAY! I use the OSS version, but reading the license gives me zero confidence that this version will be legal or available after MS completes this takeover.

[rcliff]

At this point, I think it is safe to assume that Microsoft's acquisition of Yahoo is inevitable. The only question is how long and how ugly the takeover gets. Perhaps this is just wishful thinking, but I would not necessarily jump to the conclusion that this means certain death for Zimbra. I see two scenarios which Zimbra can survive.

1. MS is forced by regulators to spin off Zimbra as a condition of the acquisition. This scenario would obviously be the best option for Zimbra's long term viability.
   
2. MS either decides to or is forced to continue development of Zimbra. MS can take advantage of Zimbra's market and make it a profit center similarly to the Macintosh business unit within Microsoft. In this scenario, I would expect to see an immediate priority Windows server port. The downside here is that over time I would expect that support for non-windows platforms (ie. linux server support, Firefox browsers, blackberries, etc.) could suffer in favor on MS offerings.

While, the likelihood that MS simply kills Zimbra is strong I would not dismiss the possibilities above.

If that online petition ever gets completed and has enough response to get noticed, perhaps that could help.

Let's keep our fingers crossed that the "borg" doesn't have its way with perhaps the best Exchange alternative out there.

Cliff

[bigmudcake]

I think quite a few people in this thread need to take a few deep breaths.

What especially concerns me are a number of people actually "holding off" or looking at inferior alternatives (such as Scalix) due to the MS announcement and the FUD that is being spread in this thread.

These people need to see a few facts before they make a rash and potentually wrong decision for the email needs of the companies they represent.

Even in worse case, if MS/Yahoo deal goes through then it would still be at least 2 years before development would cease (thats even if it would cease), allowing for 1 year for the battle to takeover, 6 months for regulatory approval, 6 months for MS to get plans into action.

Now, given that Zimbra is already years ahead of its competion , you are looking to at least 4 years of useability. And by that stage you would do a review anyway.

So all those considering using Zimbra now, the MS announcement should not hinder their plans. You should consider Zimbra to be the best collaboration product for at least the next 4 years.

Also, do the people in this thread really think that the employees of Zimbra would simply walk away from a product their have spend countless hours of dedication on. The fact is, there is nothing to stop the employees or ex employees to continue development of the Open Source version.

So, its not all gloom and doom.

Cheers
bigmucake.

[dijichi2]

unfortunately bigmudcake, I don't think this is the case.

Also, do the people in this thread really think that the employees of Zimbra would simply walk away from a product their have spend countless hours of dedication on. The fact is, there is nothing to stop the employees or ex employees to continue development of the Open Source version.

But Zimbra is not licensed under a true opensource license, it's under a badgeware license. The entire frontend, and most of the backend contains license obligations to display prominently, on every page, the Zimbra logo. Microsoft would potentially own this trademark.

Even in worse case, if MS/Yahoo deal goes through then it would still be at least 2 years before development would cease (thats even if it would cease), allowing for 1 year for the battle to takeover, 6 months for regulatory approval, 6 months for MS to get plans into action.

And what if Yahoo caves into shareholder/legal pressure and submits to takeover next week? Given that neither company has anywhere vaguely near majority market share in any relevent area, I don't hold out much hope for regulatory approval either taking much time or helping zimbra out.

Now, given that Zimbra is already years ahead of its competion , you are looking to at least 4 years of useability. And by that stage you would do a review anyway.

Are you suggesting companies should continue to use 4-year old software which very shortly would be guaranteed to be riddled with security holes?

[rcliff]

Originally Posted by bigmudcake

Even in worse case, if MS/Yahoo deal goes through then it would still be at least 2 years before development would cease (thats even if it would cease), allowing for 1 year for the battle to takeover, 6 months for regulatory approval, 6 months for MS to get plans into action.

Now, given that Zimbra is already years ahead of its competion , you are looking to at least 4 years of useability. And by that stage you would do a review anyway.

So all those considering using Zimbra now, the MS announcement should not hinder their plans. You should consider Zimbra to be the best collaboration product for at least the next 4 years.

Worse case scenario? This is hardly the worse case. While nothing has happened yet, the MS/Yahoo deal could certainly develop very quickly from here. Worse case is deal is done in 6 months and Microsoft kills all Zimbra development immediately. Even if you have a solid working system at that point, security holes will surface and there will be no one patching them. At that point, all Zimbra admins will be sitting ducks scrambling for a new solution. I for one, would not would not want to be in that situation and certainly disagree that holding off is wrong at this point.