In the last few years, Zimbra has grown by leaps and bounds in competing with Outlook and Exchange in the corporate email world. Most technical analysts agree that Zimbra has a much better and more server management tools, is much more efficient than exchange, and is more reliable than exchange, however thus far Zimbra has been primarily been an email-server solution, and much less of an email client. It’s has a very usable AJAX web client, but until recently, there was no desktop software that Zimbra created to compete directly with Outlook. Zimbra recently launched a beta of their new desktop client, dubbed Zimbra Desktop, and we’re impressed.
The primary benefit in using Zimbra desktop as opposed to the web client is that you can use it when you’re offline. You might be on the road, have your laptop with you, and want to send an email or save an appointment for later, but you can’t since there’s no internet connection. You can now do that with Zimbra Desktop. You can make any changes you want with Zimbra’s Desktop Client, and then whenever you have an internet connection again, it’ll sync your changes up to the server.
Zimbra Desktop features full email support as you get in Outlook. It also features a fast and indexed search tool. You can also access your calendar and contacts offline. An interesting feature is that you can manage Gmail, Yahoo Mail, IMAP, and POP email accounts in addition to your Zimbra email accounts. This means that you can view all of your Gmail offline, make changes as you’d like, and then when you connect to the internet, any changes you make to the account will by synced.
The client is written in Java and is available on Windows, Mac, or Linux. So far, it’s just a beta, but it’s got a lot of potential. As the development process continues and Zimbra Desktop matures, Outlook is sure to have a fierce competitor.
Want to learn more?
Sign up for Zimbra Hosted service.
Learn more about software consolidation service.
Tags: email · exchange · it · outlook · software · technology · Zimbra · zimbra desktop7 Comments
Share on Facebook
Agreed…Zimbra has put together a better product than Microsoft here. Many are worried that if Microsoft succeeds in buying Yahoo, who owns Zimbra, then Zimbra will be axed since its an MS competitor. Thankfully, Zimbra is also released in a open-source version, so it should live on regardless of Microsoft’s intentions of killing it.
I just stumbled upon this review. I was debating whether to go with Zimbra Desktop or Mozilla Thunderbird. I guess since they’re both free I can give both a shot haha
Be aware that you can use Thunderbird offline to manage your email, but not your calendar (assuming you install the Lightning plugin). With Zimbra Desktop, you can also access your calendar and contacts offline.
The Zimbra Desktop client, which is still in Beta, is slow and sluggish and takes 165k of RAM!
On the other hand, it automated the transfer of my Yahoo mail, in Folders, to GMail, using Labels instead of Folders.
You win some and you lose some!
Agreed, you do win some and lose some. The reason that Zimbra Desktop has such a large footprint (I’m assuming you meant megabytes of RAM) is that it is in essence it is a Zimbra server, running on your desktop. This allows for the calendar / task / contact sync along with the ability to access your Zimlets off-line. That being said, it is a Java / AJAX web application at it’s core, thus the speed.
Zimbra has made great progress with it across all of the Beta’s and now RC’s. Where I think that Zimbra desktop shines is it’s ability to provide a unified UI and access to all of your accounts in one centralized location, on-line and off.
As with most products, I’ve seen increases and speed with Zimbra Desktop as time passes and I think it is a viable solution for those who enjoy the Zimbra WebUI, but need access off-line. It’s just one more way to gain access to your information, how you want it.
Cheers,
Dustin
DataSync
Answer to my own question. It does work with hotmail – livemail
http://wiki.zimbra.com/index.php?title=Yahoo%21_Zimbra_Desktop_Feature_Comparison
I liked the idea of Zimbra having found Thunderbird very tempermental when used with multiple accounts so I tried it. Had loads of problems with it and it just loved to eat up resources. I then got rid of it and left it alone for several months and have just tried it again. Installed fine, ran fine, still loved eating as many resources it can but it completely screwed up My Yahoo page. As I still don’t like the way it looks and how much ram it eats up I found it very easy to delete with a mental reminder to leave well alone. I used the desktop installation so there was no extra stuff included. If I was interested in all of that I would use Zoho (zoho.com)as its free and far far superior. Zimbra may appeal to some but there are much better programmes out there and they are free as well.