MS offering to buy Yahoo ???

[jholder]

Originally Posted by timothyalangorman

The "gpl zimbra now" thread has been closed............

This is indeed a support forum jholder.....
That is why we (the zimbra users / admins) are conversing; to "support" our decisions and understand the worst and best case scanerio.

Reopened.

-john

[mbd]

IMHO, there's not much point in freaking out right now because Zimbra employees probably don't yet have a good idea of what is happening. If you have concerns about Zimbra's future, either choose something else, or wait and see what is to be.

[Mike Scholes]

Originally Posted by jholder

Guys-
We are a support forum, not a Rumor forum.

But it is used for announcements, it's the first item on the forum list. If anything needed some sort of announcement from Zimbra this does.

Originally Posted by jholder

If you want to make a difference, keep using Zimbra.
.

Sure, but for some of us it could cost us our jobs if we kept using Zimbra and didn't react to this dramatic news.

[jrefl5]

Originally Posted by jholder

Guys-
We are a support forum, not a Rumor forum.

If you want to make a difference, keep using Zimbra.

If you're angry, or want to complain, please send them to jholder@zimbra.com

Not to be an a$$, but once again, we're a support forum. Let's keep the discussion on topic.

J.
This is a support question, we just converted to Zimbra NE, and if MS is successful in its bid then the questions about this product have definite implications to budgeting and/or testing other options. So any incite that you or other Zimbra Emp. may have could be used to cool down some of the rumors.

James C.

[jholder]

Discussion is totally cool. And wondering about support is a very logical thing to do. Just remember. Many of us on PST just woke up

When we get it, you'll get it. We've always stayed committed to you (as anyone been around long enough knows) and we will continue to communicate with you, and stay committed.

I've been around since 2005. When I hear it, I pass it to you That's the way it's always been.

-john

[nrc]

Thanks for reopening. You just saved yourself a scathing email from an NE customer.

[Vladimir]

Originally Posted by jholder

Just remember. Many of us on PST just woke up

With all due respect, I fear it is to late. That line may end up containing more meaning then it was inteded.

Frankly, we were aproaching decission time at a big school, and all of a sudden we are sitting around counting the man hours we might have wasted. This type of news hits a lot of us very hard. From the AP article on the Yahoo front page, I note that "Microsoft won't take no for an answer". Combine that with recent change of leadership at Yahoo, and I don't think there is much question about the outcome. I so wish I'm wrong.

[mbd]

While I think a lot of the comments are to be expected, and represent concerns that are/should be felt by most Zimbra customers right now, I think some posters should (quickly) go buy a copy of the book 'Who Moved My Cheese?'. Let's not immediately start fearing the worst until we know more about what's actually happening.

As a 'survivor' of the AOL/Netscape merger some years ago, I don't believe that the news of the hostile takeover attempt is particularly good. That said, the core of what made Netscape great still exists in the Mozilla project. While today's code doesn't represent what Netscape used originally, Mozilla wouldn't exist today without them.

Zimbra is probably one of the last things on Microsoft's minds right now, and they (microsoft) will probably have far greater and more complex issues to deal with than the 'boutique' company that Yahoo picked up a few months ago.

I'm sure we'll all get answers if/when the takeover happens, but as someone who's been through these kind of waters before I'd suggest that everyone try and be a little sympathetic to all the Zimbra staff members who are probably pretty worried about their own futures to some extent right now.


P.S. Zimbra/Yahoo employees: You may want to consider stocking up on these :

[vince]

Originally Posted by dkarp

Not to put too fine a point on this, but please not to be freaking out yet.

I think everyone is justified in their panic about this news. I know right now we are not happy about this news, since we went with Zimbra since they gave us the assurance that they would be around for the long haul and not vanish. Seems like the last two products we bought, Linux based, were eventually bought up and discontinued. The last product in particular was Truedesk by Mintersoft; we were about 1 year into the launch and bam they got bought out with no notice to their customers.

After that it was a hard sell to my management to convince them to trust another Linux based solution, we tested out Zimbra and liked the product a lot and also talked with Zimbra management via phone conference to get reassurances that they were here to stay. Our campus actually decided to go with Zimbra over M$ exchange for the students and alumni because of the features and performance it gave us in our testing environment. Our users are really enjoying the product and we have actually seen an increase in usage due to the user friendliness of it as well. So here we sit, having just launched Zimbra campus wide to over 30,000 students and alumni and the prospect of this not even being here in the future.

So to say for us NOT to panic right now is not justifiable, we have the right to start getting suspect about this NOW since some of this knowledge of a possible acquisition was know about for months now by others but not us customers.

[putt1ck]

Originally Posted by mbd

While I think a lot of the comments are to be expected, and represent concerns that are/should be felt by most Zimbra customers right now, I think some posters should (quickly) go buy a copy of the book 'Who Moved My Cheese?'. Let's not immediately start fearing the worst until we know more about what's actually happening.

Well, as a paying customer who chose Zimbra to get a freedom of choice in other areas of our IS strategy, it's my job to fear the worst. We already have enough facts for a panic. Microsoft have made a very generous offer (although I'd swing for a higher percentage of cash, myself), in a classically aggressive move; while the Yahoo! board may reject it on the grounds of damage to Yahoo! as a company, probably enough stockholders will want to cash in for the offer to be accepted.

The closed "GPL Zimbra now" thread is a good call - is pretty much the best option I could have to take to our organisation without having to say "hey, that crazy decision we made about moving away from that Microsoft product; well all that more freedom stuff, more features and better value in the long term blah, tapping flexible innovation with limitations guff, well, you see, well, umm...". Which I'm sure you would agree is not exactly inspirational and confidence inspiring. A spin-out of Zimbra would also be an answer.

So to me it is a support question. The big one. Like when the Yahoo! stockholders cash in on this offer, will we still have any support? Really? Like will we get access to any continued product innovation in the medium term (part of the support concept I saw huge value in)? Like will we still get a wide choice of supported platforms with any future releases? Etc., etc., etc., ...

To me, it is not just a support question. It's just become *the* support question.