DataSync Business News

It looks like Joomla V 1.5 has finally come to fruition. From the Joomla Website:

It is with great pride that the Joomla! community announces to the world the immediate availability of Joomla! 1.5 Stable [Khepri].  As a community of contributors, we have been through celebrations and tribulations. We have had fun, and we have worked hard. We have learned from and helped one another. What started two and a half years ago with a letter to the community has grown into a great opportunity for both the Joomla! project and community to benefit from these efforts and to consider our future.

People have contributed enormous amounts of time and energy to make Joomla! 1.5 what it is today. Developers collaborated over long distances, around the clock, enthusiastically contributing to Joomla!. Hours writing code combined with intense discussions on everything from usability to extensibility have defined many developers’ lives over the last two and a half years. Countless others have identified and fixed bugs along the way.  Documenters have tracked changes to help make life easier for everyone who uses or develops in Joomla! 1.5. Translators for dozens of languages have prepared language packs.  Huge amounts of time and energy have gone into event organization, team management, and infrastructure upkeep.  Our forums are overflowing with those asking and answering questions about Joomla! 1.5, helping overcome problems and reaching out to newcomers in a concerted effort to be helpful.

DataSync Offers Joomla Hosting as part of its Productivity Suite

CUPERTINO, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–SugarCRM, the world’s leading provider of commercial open source customer relationship management (CRM) software, today announced prominent keynotes and sponsors for SugarCon 2008, its global customer and developer conference, February 6-8, 2008, at the Dolce Hayes Mansion in San Jose, California. Research In Motion, Microsoft, Oracle, Sun, MySQL, Talend and Levementum are among the industry leaders sponsoring the conference, which is designed for users, developers and managers of CRM projects. Space is limited, so please visit http://www.sugarcrm.com/crm/events/sugarcon/register.html for more information and to secure a reservation.

The kickoff keynote, “The End of the Beginning: Open Source Moves into the Mainstream,” by SugarCRM Co-Founder and CEO John Roberts, will look at how open source is transforming the software industry and what it means for the future of CRM.

Jonathan Schwartz, CEO of Sun Microsystems, will speak about Sun’s role as the largest commercial open source contributor and how its recent acquisition of MySQL further positions the company as a platform for the Web economy.

Other keynotes include:

In addition to the keynotes, SugarCon 2008 offers over 40 sessions tailored to SugarCRM customers, partners, administrators and developers. Breakout topics include “CRM On-Demand or On-Site: A Decision Framework,” “Best Practices for Deploying SugarCRM,” “GPL v3: What It Means for You” and “Mashing Up Sugar.” To view a complete agenda, please visit http://www.sugarcrm.com/crm/events/sugarcon/agenda.html.

SugarCon 2008 includes the following extracurricular activities:

• California cuisine, drinks and music at the famed Testarossa Winery in the Los Gatos hills
• Welcome reception and dinner at the Dolce Hayes Mansion
• Rooftop party on Santana Row in San Jose

Research In Motion and Microsoft are Platinum Sponsors for SugarCon. Selling Power Magazine is the premier media sponsor. Gold Sponsors include Oracle, Sun, MySQL, Talend and Levementum. Silver Sponsors include InsideView, JasperSoft, JigSaw, Q-Industries, SierraCRM and Zend Technologies. CRM Magazine, PHP Magazine and myCRMcareer.com are media sponsors of the event.

Attendance cost is USD 495 per person. Please visit http://www.sugarcrm.com/crm/events/sugarcon/register.html to register.

About SugarCRM

SugarCRM is the world’s leading provider of commercial open source customer relationship management (CRM) software for companies of all sizes. Sugar easily adapts to any business environment by offering a more flexible, cost-effective alternative than proprietary applications. SugarCRM’s open source architecture allows companies to more easily customize and integrate customer-facing business processes in order to build and maintain more profitable relationships. SugarCRM offers several deployment options, including on-demand, on-premise and appliance-based solutions to suit customers’ security, integration and configuration needs.

DataSync offers high-quality SugarCRM Hosting. Click here for more information.

We are proud to announce the production launch of Zimbra 5.0 Network Edition on all hosted environments (shared, virtual, dedicated). Zimbra has done a tremendous job on this landmark release, most notably the head-on feature competition with Microsoft Exchange. Zimbra now has a much more robust feature set at an extremely competitive price. Zimbra 5.0 adds support for Outlook 2007, iPhone, and other desktop and mobile clients. Feature upgrades include task support, instant messaging, and the landmark “Briefcase” file management solution.

Zimbra is now a viable option for a variety of industry verticals, including higher education (universities, tech schools), technology companies, media/marketing firms, financial services, and medical services. DataSync has experience implementing Zimbra in all these industries, and is looking to ramp up services in each vertical in the future.

If you are interested in DataSync’s Zimbra hosting and implementation services, check out their corporate website at http://discoverefficiency.com.

Zimbra, a Yahoo! (Nasdaq: YHOO) company, and the leader in open source, next-generation messaging and collaboration software, today announced that it has expanded its support for Apple products and technologies, including Safari 3 and CalDAV for Mac OS X Leopard.

“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,” said Satish Dharmaraj, CEO and co-founder of Zimbra. “We also wanted to expand our support for the iPhone by adding an optimized mobile web experience on top of our iSync support.”

“Leopard is packed with more than 300 new features, including major enhancements to Safari and iCal,” said Ron Okamoto, Apple’s vice president of Worldwide Developer Relations. “We’re pleased that Zimbra users can take advantage of the world’s fastest browser with Safari and improved iCal group calendaring with CalDAV in Leopard.”

The Zimbra Collaboration Suite (ZCS) fully supports Safari 3, which is the fastest Web browser on any platform and is available for Tiger and Leopard users and is in beta on Windows. ZCS’s rich AJAX interface, including email, calendaring, Zimbra Documents, and customizable mash- ups called Zimlets, takes full advantage of Safari’s optimized AJAX browsing experience.

To meet the advanced calendaring needs of Mac users, Zimbra now supports CalDAV, a key feature for customers using Leopard’s iCal 3 as their calendaring client. Based on a public standard, CalDAV allows users to synchronize and browse free/busy time and recurring appointments easily, both with personal and public calendars.

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.

These enhancements reflect Zimbra’s ongoing commitment to the Mac community, and to providing innovative features for the Mac platform. Zimbra has long supported iSync, which provides a two-way sync between Apple Mail, Address Book, iCal, Microsoft Entourage, and the ZCS server.

DataSync offers solid Zimbra Hosting that supports Safari & dozens of other platforms. Click here for details

Zimbra 5.0 recently came out and DataSync will be moving its servers over to the new version this weekend. Here’s what we can look foward to with Zimbra 5.0

Zimbra Advanced Web Client (AJAX)

• Email Folder Sharing: Any folder in your inbox (including RSS feeds and subfolders) can be shared with others.  You have the ability to provide read only-access or allow others to manage.
• Many Productivity Enhancements: Pick from multiple email signatures, set message priority, add images to contacts, and select multiple messages and forward them all at once are among the many features added to the Web Client
• More Calendar Scheduling Options: New advanced features in Calendar include: the ability to mark events in your shared calendar as ‘private,’ move events from one user’s calendar to another’s; import and export calendar events as standard ICS (iCal) files.
• Tasks: Manage all your tasks including select start and due dates, choose their priority as well as keep track of progress and percent complete.  Tasks can also be organized and saved into folders and easily be shared with other end-users as view-only or full management access.  Tasks also sync to Outlook via our MAPI Connector.
• Instant Messaging (Beta): IM is built directly into ZCS; end-users can have multiple conversations open as well as group chats.  Zimbra IM is an XMPP based client and server and interoperable with major providers such as AOL and MSN.  IM conversations are also fully indexed and stored for discovery.
• Briefcase: Store all your important files in Briefcase instead of as email attachments, which can be saved in one click directly to a Briefcase folder.  The folders are shareable with other end-users and files can be easily emailed to others directly from Briefcase.
• Documents GA: Zimbra Documents is out of Beta.  Users can create and edit wiki-style documents online with tables, images, or spreadsheets and can easily share and collaborate with others.  Document history lets users quickly revert unwanted changes.
• Faster Performance: New optimizations such as ‘lazy loading’ further reduce Web Client start up time
• Choose your Language: Many popular languages are pre-installed (such as French, German, and Spanish); end-users can now select their display language of choice in “Preferences”

Zimbra Standard Web Client (HTML)

• GA Availability: The Standard Client is now officially ready for general availability
• IMAP and POP Aggregation: New support for adding external email accounts using IMAP or POP (already available in the Advanced Client)
• Themes and Identities: Support for advanced custom themes and the ability for users to select from multiple identities when they send and receive email (already in Advanced Client)
• Tasks: Manage all your tasks including select start and due dates, choose their priority as well as keep track of progress and percent complete. 

Zimbra Mobile

• iPhone and Mobile Browser Support: iPhone and other devices that support for HTML / JavaScript can access the Zimbra server directly to view email, contacts, and calendar.  You can compose messages as well as view folders and tags.  Zimbra search is also included.
• Rich J2ME Client (Beta): The Zimbra experience is now available on popular phones like the Motorola Razr and Blackberry Pearl.  Get email in conversation view plus your contacts and calendar all in real time.
• Native Blackberry Support (Beta): Zimbra Mobile can now interface directly you’re your Blackberry Enterprise Server.  With minimal configuration you can get Zimbra email, contacts, calendar syncing over-the-air to your favorite Blackberry device.
• Task Syncs: Zimbra Mobile server can now sync your Tasks to Windows Mobile 5 devices

Zimbra Desktop Connectors

• Zimbra Connector for Outlook 2007 GA: End-users can now sync their Zimbra email, filters, contacts, calendar, and tasks to Outlook 2007 using our MAPI connector.  Other enhancements include: view your Zimbra mailbox quota, improved support for Roaming Windows Profiles, Reminders sync, and support for Zimbra Mail Identities
• Zimbra Desktop (Beta):  Desktop is officially beta; allowing end-users have the Zimbra experience in the browser online and offline.  Zimbra Desktop supports email, contacts, and calendar and can be used on the Windows, Linux, or Mac desktop.

For Administrators and Service Providers

• Home Tab: Ability to enable a ‘welcome page’ view in the Web Clients
• Disable Email: Run ZCS as a calendar-only solution by disabling all other features in the product via the Admin Console Class of Service (CoS) settings
• Veritas Cluster Service (VCS): ZCS now supports VCS in addition to Red Hat Clustering; adding clustering support for SUSE and VMware ES3
• Backup and Restore Enhancements: Now view the status of account backups, including success or failure.  Restore mailboxes to a specific point in time from the Admin Console.
• Server Upgrade Compatibility: Rolling upgrades are now supported of LDAP and mailbox servers for large ZCS deployments

Open Platform Updates

• New Server OS’: Debian 4, SUSE ES10, Fedora Core 7
• Safari 3: The Advanced Web Client (AJAX) now officially supports Safari 3 on the Mac
• Voicemail API: Ability to integrate ZCS with other voice mail systems and provide access to messages and call history
• Customize Mail Header Detection: You can now specify header and meta data information to detect in a message to enable integration with certified email providers such as Goodmail
• Make Custom Buttons: Create custom buttons and add them in ZCS which link to external sites

More info on Zimbra.com

We are proud to announce that we now have full production SugarCRM 5.0 hosting, implementation, and support services, as well as upgrades from SugarCRM 4.5 to 5.0. SugarCRM 5.0 is the latest version of our partner’s ground-breaking software, and cements both DataSync and SugarCRM as a premier CRM solution for organizations around the globe.

Sugar’s landmark 5.0 release includes the “module builder”, a mechanism for building out custom modules that are fully integrated with the entire Sugar suite. DataSync already has experience building out custom modules and functionality using this tool. DataSync also offers module builder training for firms who are looking to implement SugarCRM internally.

We are really excited to find new ways to leverage the power of SugarCRM in a variety of industry verticals. We believe our prior experience combined with the best new tools will help us provide the best solutions on the market to our clients.

For a few years now, the Zimbra Collaboration Suite and SugarCRM haven’t talked. We all wish they would. It’s a frustrating problem, because both applications have very strong points, but very different uses. Zimbra excels at group collaboration and messaging, while Sugar is a full fledged CRM application. The problem is syncing email, calendars, and contacts has been non-existent.

That’s about to change. DataSync is sponsoring the “Zimgar” project, which aims to build an open source tool that plugs both applications into each other. No more manual or Outlook-based tri-directional syncing. Right now we’re still in the planning stages of this project, but hope to start development very soon.

If you have ideas or thoughts email me. I’d be more than happy to go over our strategy and get your input.

Onward!

-Mike

We are excited to announce that we are now the top-ranking KnowledgeTree hosting firm according to Google. The guys from KnowledgeTree have been great to work with, and we hope that our new ranking will help bring awareness to the open source community about the option of hosting software. We have found that SaaS (Software as a Service) is a powerful means to allow even the smallest businesses to take advantage of open source, without having to expensive consultants and additional IT resources.

I’d like to thank KnowledgeTree as well for their contribution to the community and building awareness about open source document management.

DataSync is proud to announce Dr. Aelred J. Kurtenbach’s participation in our Board of Advisers. Al co-founded Daktronics, Inc. in 1968 and now serves as Chairman of the Board for Daktronics. Al provides insight into our day to day operations, overall planning, and most of all our vision. We are honored to have Mr. Kurtenbach on our board, and look forward to his insight in the future.

To find out more about or board and leadership, check out our corporate website.

Wow, what a journey it’s been! This blog is finally our entrance into the open world of information. We have spent the past 3 years building a solid business, and now we will be sharing our adventures with you. We hope this site will provide you with a peek into what drives us to innovate and move forward, and also give you a place to give us your feedback and ideas. We are excited about the future and what it holds of open software.

DataSync has grown tremendously, and our breadth of knowledge and expertise has expanded as well. We have found that integrating open source applications is in great demand. Integrating SugarCRM and Zimbra is at the top of our list right now. We have the opportunity to see back office integration with purely open source applications for the first time. In the past this type of automation was reserved completely to the realm of expensive proprietary applications that were much too expensive for the average small business to afford.

It’s great to be able to help small businesses take advantage of great tools without massive upfront costs. When we started DataSync, we worked with these businesses every day. They needed better tools, but the available tools were either much too expensive or didn’t have the features they needed. Open software has bridged this gap.

This is the first of what will become a place that allows DataSync to share our experiences in the exciting new world of open integration. We anticipate some exciting projects in 2008, and expect to make great headway in building out truly unified open source solutions. We are also excited about offering cost effective SaaS (Software as a Service) offerings. For those of you who don’t have large IT staffing and budgets, this will be a great way to try and use software with no additional infrastructure.

Check back often as this blog grows and changes. Feedback is welcome, so feel free to let us know what you think!

-Mike