Standalone outlook connector
I'm sure this may have been answered already, but I can't find anythign definitive.
Zimbra represents a very interesting solution, but the scale of users required to make it worthwhile make it impossible for small business/home users to achieve somethign very important.. offline sync.
Whilst the web interface is incredibly powerful, there are times when you simply dont have a network connection. I work in a very small development team ( < 10 ) users, but there are at least three regular travellers who absolutely rely on outlook to keep a local copy of their email, and to be able to respond to emails and resync when they are next back in coverage.
The Network Version, even at Small Business level is complete overkill, yet the Outlook connector is critical. Could you not employ pricing strategy similar to Ximian and sell licenses per-connection additionally? In this way, users of the Network Version can have a full Zimbra subscription, and also enjoy a rightofuse for the Outlook Connector. The rest of us who simply want a very very low user number of connectors could opt to use (albeit unsupported) the OSS version and just buy 3 or 4 Outlook Connector licenses at , say, $25/go.
In this way, you allow companies like mine to experience Zimbra, to use it everyday, and to develop extensions so we can integrate our existing middleware apps into it - most importantly winning you over the large scale corporate customers required to make the subscription model work. We can't recommend what we can't use day-to-day!
Cheers, and sorry if this has been covered millions of times already.
Dave
Temporary IMAP in Outlook
Still evaluating Zimbra and just wanted to clarify IMAP support in outlook for the OSS version.
Migrate/upgrade to Network Edition would be the next logical step, but initially I am still in a cloud on if Zimbra allows at least IMAP connectivity in Outlook to check and respond to email.
I understand that calendering, etc requires the MAPI connector, but will the OSS version at least allow us to have standard email functionality in outlook that is provided by every other system?
Zimbra is more expensive than exchange
I am very impessed with Zimbra, it is obvious tha the rate at which work has been done and the level of proffesionalisim high. I am sure this all comes at a cost and for this reason I want to sell Zimbra to my clients.
Having now done the costings it is Clear that Zimbra is likely to be more successful as an open source product. I think there may be enough people willing to pay for the full version, but I was looking for something which saved them money over Exchange.
Zimbra is more expensive.
I tried SUSE open exhange (that cusomer went elsewhere after two years and bought exchange).
Tried IMAP with OSASync (outlook stops the connector when it crashes sync of multiple databsases is not supportable).
Anyway this whole experience has driven me to offer two products to my clients
Zimbra open source where they will use web or Thunderbird
Exchange server if they wnat to use outlook. (I set my first one up tommorow)
Microsoft did not get where they are today by being the higher cost vendor
MS DOS was about 1/5 the price of CPM/86
Add more functions to the costed version and sell the outlook connector for a reasonable fixed price.
Frankly I am dedicated to seeing Microsoft move to Legacy, but I do have to pay some bills, I have lost too many customers by not having and exchange level product.
