Is Zimbra right for us?

[alj]

Hi all.

I'm in my final year at college studying business management and we have now got the task of developing a business that will be accessible our local SME sector and I am wanting to know a few things.

(First off I am not the techy one, I am just doing some research so bare with me!)

1. Would Zimbra Server be ok to use if we wanted to setup a hosted mail exchange where people can pay for mail boxes?

2. The "seat package". Is this what is known as a "Client Access Licence" - 25 seat package is 25 mail boxes which no more than 25 people can access at once? Each seat is $35 which would total $875?

3. Is there software like Modernbill that can be used for user registration and automatic billing/setup of mailboxes?

Thanks

[mmorse]

Welcome to the forums,

Yup, there are already Zimbra certified partners: Both Hosting Providers (List of Hosting Providers) & VARs (List of VARs) who do this.
-So yes it's viable for a school assignment/project

Pricing depends on the features you desire.
Typically starting at $25-35/person for the Network Edition, then dramatically goes down from there the more you purchase.
seat=person=account mailbox
(Of course this has nothing to do with aliases - main account: user@domain.com alias: first.last@domain.com alias: nickname@domain.com)

Or you could even build a business using the free -yes it's hard to believe but free- Open Source Edition, it's purely up to you.
(Doing so there's certain restrictions of course, ie: Zimbra/Zimbra powered logos & copyright notices intact etc)

[alj]

Great, thanks for a decent reply.

Only thing I am still wondering is about billing software, is there any available we could use in conjunction with Zimbra Server?

[jholder]

This has been something we've been interested in.

Zimbra works wonderfully with Salesforce CRM via our Zimlets.

[mmorse]

For that you'd have to ask some of the hosting providers.
Look at their pricing schemes, most don't charge for bandwidth, but instead base it off of storage & features.
Everything can be scripted somehow, they all have their own methods of automatic billing, account management & payment portals etc. Anything from salesforce to sugar. There's a billion ways to keep track of it & they've each gone down different paths.

[alj]

Ok and thank again, I will show this site to the guys in the morning and see what they think

[alj]

Oh by the way, how come there isn't a Windows version?

[jholder]

Originally Posted by alj

Oh by the way, how come there isn't a Windows version?

Zimbra tightly integrates with postfix. Postfix only runs on *nix platforms.

If there were Postfix version that ran on windows, we might look at a windows version. .but to date, from what I hear, the developers of Postfix don't want a windows version.