Zimbra gets friendly with Safari 3.0, CalDAV, iPhone
Thursday, January 17th, 2008
A new version of the Zimbra collaboration suite 
has been released, which will make Leopard users smile with its support for Safari 3.0, integration of Leopard’s CalDAV features and an optimised iPhone interface.
The update was announced on the same day as Steve’s MWSF keynote, so it seems to have sunk without a trace. That’s a shame, as Zimbra is not only the closet thing that I have ever used to a Microsoft Exchange killer, but also works seamlessly with mail.app. It even plays nicely with MailTags.
I use it at work and it is rock solid. With its iCal-syncing Preference Pane, it also provides the platform-independent email and calendaring interface between me and my PC-using PA.
According to the press release , the Zimbra Team are cock-a-hoop about Leopard. CEO and co-founder of Zimbra, Satish Dharmaraj, says that, “The amazing speed of Safari 3 has blown the Zimbra team away and we are excited to be the first major collaboration platform to support the calendaring standard CalDAV.â€
I will admit that I began to drool (a little) at the mention of the iPhone interface:
Additionally, ZCS is now available to iPhone users via the Zimbra Mobile HTML client. The iPhone’s Safari browser enables fast access to the full-featured AJAX interface, and the Zimbra Connector for Apple iSync allows users to sync not only their email but also their address books and calendars to their iPhones.
Unfortunately, the IT Department where I work is currently enjoying some personnel restructuring and doesn’t have the resources to commit to upgrading our installation to the new version anytime soon. Perhaps you will have more luck.
Although it is now owned by Yahoo!, Zimbra retains its open-source roots. An Open Source Edition is available for free. Other, more expensive options including product support are also available. All of them can be explored at the Zimbra web site .
The company is also hiring .
