Moderators, please could you 'sticky' this thread? Because it is clearly the most important item for any Zimbra Desktop users to be aware of, and to prevent uninformed conjecture.
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Moderators, please could you 'sticky' this thread? Because it is clearly the most important item for any Zimbra Desktop users to be aware of, and to prevent uninformed conjecture.
Quote:
Originally Posted by storm
I'm very confused on the whole Zimbra Desktop EOL. We just bought Zimbra at the beginning of the year, but held off on deployment because of the pending 8.0 release, and because we are going to use Ubuntu 12.04LTS and knew this would be supported in 8.0 ... So bear in mind this post is coming from someone who hasn't actually installed the software yet.
When we decided on Zimbra - one of the keys to the decision was Zimbra Desktop and Zimlets in paticular. We liked the idea of creating a launch point for other application through ZD. We are right now an Exchange 2007 shop, and wanted to first upgrade to Zimbra Network Edition with Outlook 2010 staying on the clients -- then branding Zimbra Desktop and migrating by department from Outlook.
So, understand the confusion here. Does it make sense for us to move to ZD if it's EOL? Especially seeing we waited so long for deployment to start on current releases of Zimbra and Ubuntu? I guess it doesn't.
What's the story with Zimlets? again - this was a big selling point for us -- are these still supported, and is it a bad investment to look at developing these?
Will the Outlook connector still be supported moving forward? I believe we paid extra for this functionality.
Should we contact our VMWare representatives to go over the changes and what we need to prepare for? None of these changes were mentioned when we started investigating Zimbra as an Exchange replacement. For us to have been able to convince upper management to allow the change - it was based on the technology at that time. We expected upgrades and changes, but this looks like an overhaul of strategy and functionality. Maybe it will be greater than sliced bread for most, but now we either have to install planned EOL software - or we have to use something drastically different from what we were sold.
Thanks,
John
I hope you allow me to reply from a mostly happy customer's prospective.
No it does NOT make sense to migrate anyone off of outlook. Believe me that won't be a fun process even when ZD was up to date against the server. What I mean by that is that if you did that now you'll notice that the server experience is COMPLETELY DIFFERENT from the ZD experience. ZD is staying with all of the 7.x features and gui and zimbra server 8 is a greatly improved and new beast in the gui department.Quote:
Originally Posted by sheehanje
Zimlets are useful to develop if your company has the money and time to develop them. Zimbra hasn't yet become mainstream enough to foster a community that actually maintains these things. They're the Equivalent of outlook add-ins but the upside is they can be used from the server level. The concept was to allow these to run on the desktop client as well but I don't think that's worth worrying about anymore.
Yes the outlook connector will be supported to my knowledge. And it better be supported or they're losing a whole bunch of customers.
This last bit is my BIGGEST problem with VMware Zimbra. Serious hand and foot disease. The salesmen and techs have no idea what the roadmap is for the product, and VMware doesn't seem to want people to know. This lack of communication is maddening because it's one of the only things that keeps me on the fence about the product. Zimbra as a server has been spectacular compared to exchange. However the desktop product has always been quirky and troublesome. I'm in a way glad they're doing an EOL on ZD, it was a patch-work product they never really gave a fair amount of attention to anyway. But I'm still waiting for that seamless desktop->webserver experience.
I'm actually glad you're ending the ZD product. After the collapse of prism etc it doesn't surprise me. The only issue is I have no idea what you're planning to do to replace the features it provided.
So the big feature in the eyes of VMware was that ZD offered offline access to e-mail. This was nice but I don't see it as a problem the majority of your customers are going to be concerned about. Offline e-mail is all but a thing of the past, in our little network we may have a total of 4 or 5 users who've EVER used that feature and it was probably only a handful of times. Plane or vacation cabin. And even then it was of cursory value. Meaning no one would have been yelled at if it wasn't available.
More important to us is a seamless experience. We want desktop users to think of Zimbra as a full mail client, not just a webmail client. That said there are some projects that kindof competed with ZD in that department that are now all completely abandoned. For instance the Zimbra Toaster.
As opposed to the Offline experience a great deal of our users rely on toaster-like pop ups to notify them of new mail. Many don't have speakers or if they do, they prefer the toaster or pop up to an audible alert. And that's not enough because with browser tabbing it's complicated to get back into the mail client in some browsers.
We've done a little testing here to see if there's a way around that and chrome's "Create application shortcut" feature is greatly helpful but not there. I was hoping that VMware could revive the toaster product and add in the ability to install a zimbra shortcut that would open it in a separate default browser instance and give it an icon and the whole shebang. With the exception of the offline capability this would be something we could certainly live with and would definitively be a step up really.
Another thing you need to consider in pushing ZD EOL is a more realistic minimum requirement list for servers. Since all of that searching and basic mail activity will now go to a server in addition to all of the other things it has to do some of your larger customers or medium edging large might be interested in a more intuitive install that supports multiple servers because they're going to need them if they move everyone off of the desktop client.
This is, of course, all assuming that those customers want a seamless Zimbra experience. I suspect many do. I don't want to have to re-train users when they use webmail because they've been living in an outlook world and on a snow day or vacation, when they really need the seamless experience they spend 2 hours with a tech trying to figure out how to do simple things they can do very quickly in outlook. As a developer you may forget how blockheaded some people can be when it comes to tech. We have to work with users that have never used a computer, much less e-mail, from time to time and being able to provide some regularity in their e-mail experience would be greatly appreciated.
So here are your options:
-Give us the zimbra toaster and build in the ability to save the zimbra webclient as a desktop shortcut. Comprehensive calling as well. When you click a notification it needs to open the right window.
-Create a webapp skin that mirrors outlook.
A simplistic view.. if yours users want Outlook, then let them in Outlook.Quote:
Create a webapp skin that mirrors outlook.
As a fan about Zimbra ZCS have to admit that ZD it's not yet ready for mainstream.
So, keep your fat clients, whatever you want.
Speaking myself, think Thunderbird + Ligthing + Zindus can do the job. Obviusly, it's not an Outlook replacement.. yet. But it's free and FOSS.
ccelis
Whilst I appreciate that you should air your users perspective, please do not generalise for other users around the world, or in different trades or use cases; the world extends beyond the horizons of our personal experiences.Quote:
Originally Posted by marcusg
Offline clients with full Zimbra capability are essential for huge numbers of Zimbra users. Offline email is most definitely not a thing of the past for:
- the majority of businesses in the world
- users in remote areas
- users in low income countries where we live on intermittent dial-up connections
- users in courts, mining, law enforcement, transport, local authority meetings, and politics : who must have full access to their data at times when internet access is legally or physically prohibited.
- users who are travelling with expensive or non-existent connectivity
- users who are in transit with non-existent, patchy, or expensive mobile connectivity
- users who cannot afford to have any downtime in access to their data (due to server downtime or upgrades for example)
Alternative clients (Thunderbird, Evolution, Outlook, Kontact etc...) do not provide either a seamless, or comprehensive experience. They also lack ability to sync complex addressbook fields, tagged tasks, various calendar fields, etc...
This is why an offline client, with the same interface and features as the webclient, is essential.
Well put. These are my sentiments too. I hope Zimbra's new technology will work out.Quote:
Originally Posted by storm
We WOULD and DO let them use outlook, (many of them do now because we must switch them to it). I'd want the webmail skin so that there would be a more seamless experience from outlook (official) to webmail but it's STILL a crumby option. This is important to us because there are many shared items in our environment and often users will refer each other to the location of these items as relevant to the interface they're using. If one has never used zimbra and the other only uses zimbra this has created all kinds of support issues that can be completely circumvented if we just have everyone on the same interface.Quote:
Originally Posted by ccelis5215
To be more to the point, I need something my users can be productive with. Cost (though it's a factor) is secondary to a premiere work environment. If you're an admin of some sort then I'm sure you can sympathize with how upsetting it is to have someone hung half a day on a project because they can't find an e-mail. We can solve many of these problems with zimbra, but we've found in a mixed environment (Zimbra/Outlook) people camp up into zimbra haters or zimbra lovers and manage to cooperate only to complain about the inconsistency of their e-mail experience. You can show them the search bar a hundred thousand times but until they are forced to use it they try to sort every time. I have about 10 people converted after about two years of production installation. I've chalked the greatest majority of this to UI issues that are FIXED in Zimbra 8. But as soon as we shored up those issues we have the rug pulled out from under the desktop client. Ouch.
Moreover we don't want everyone on outlook. The outlook interface leaves a whole lot to be desired in the search department. There are also a number of other issues that have made and continue to make it annoying to support. So while we lose the "what's this zimbra stuff" complaints we get back to the same ol' same ol' "I can't find my e-mail" and "would you send that again" or "It's stuck in the outbox". They're both devils. And more than anything we've worked very hard to avoid exchange and our Server uptime has showed fruit in that department. Zimbra (as a server) has been rock solid. While my exchange buddies are up at work at night on the weekend I'm sleeping like a baby.
I'd like my users in Zimbra Desktop 8 so we can move forward and make this pill easier to swallow. But clearly I won't get that, or an answer as to what I can productively plan on setting up for my users. Instead we've all been left out to dry like so many bags of spam mail.
I hope this more complex view is more acceptable to the more sophisticated elite.
I see your point. These examples, though perfectly understandable, still seem like exceptions rather than the rule, but I digress.Quote:
Originally Posted by storm
My argument was, that from a developer's perspective I can understand offline support would be a beast to re-work given the way that Zimbra Desktop was implemented. In lieu of the best solution, a full offline client, at least throw us a bone and hook us up with a program that makes the web client link to the windows shell LIKE a full client. In my case (and I would assume many others) I could cover the great majority of my users with this workaround with little to no backlash. In fact this would be an improvement!
:mad:Quote:
Originally Posted by marcusg
Please Zimbra people - can we have some clarity here. I just pushed our company to upgrade to version 8 - and now 99% of our users are on the Desktop client - which is stuck on version 7 - hence it all looks the same.
Echoing Marcus above - all we need as something that looks and acts like a true desktop client. Webmail is nice - but it's not what corporates are looking for. They want something that looks, and feels like Outlook - otherwise it's a perceived going backwards in technology. The new 8 web interface looks great - but my users cannot experience it yet as a direct result of this Zimbra Desktop EOL. PLEASE tell me you have a strategy in place to deal with customers in this situation.
Thanks!
Zakaria