DataSync Business News

In an effort to keep you updated on our progress on DataSync Suite, I decided to sit down with our engineers and ask a few probing questions. We’re excited about our progress with the package thus far, and have a strong commitment of keeping you up to date on what we’re up to. We have an extremely dynamic group of engineers who are making fast progress on our software package.

Q: What aspect of DataSync Suite are you working on right now?
A: Right now we’re working on the ability to archive emails to SugarCRM from Zimbra. This is just the first step in reproducing many of the features of the Outlook and Thunderbird plugins but for Zimbra.

Q: What technologies will you use use for data synchronization?
A: Data synchronization will be handled by what we’ve dubbed the “Integration Bus”. The “Integration Bus”, in short, will listen for changes to certain types of data in applications. When a change occurs in a particular application the Bus will distribute those changes to all other applications which rely on the same type of data.

Q: What are some of the upcoming features to expect?
A: The next major feature that we’ll be releasing is, of course, the email archiving. The communities surrounding Zimbra and SugarCRM have been looking for a way to keep their addressbook (contacts) and their calendars synchronized. After the email archiving our focus will be on just that, giving users a way to keep their calendars and contacts in sync between SugarCRM and Zimbra. Of course the DataSync Suite won’t be limited to just those two applications but will provide the means to allow other applications to be added to the mix easily.

Q: What applications will you be supporting in the future?
A: The next application we will be adding support for is Alfresco. Alfresco is an innovative open source content management system which provides digital management for documents, records, and website content. Following Alfresco will be Magento, an open source ecommerce solution.

Q: How do you handle feature requests?
A: Feature requests and bug reports can be submitted through our website feature request form.

Q: When are the next minor and major releases of the software?
A: The next release will be 0.5.0. This release will include the new email archiving functionality, an improved dashboard that takes up less screen real estate, and will introduce a new application server.

Q: When do you expect a 1.0 release?
A:  We’re looking to release version 1.0 around the end of the year.

If you have questions or comments, please post on our forums or contact us directly.

SugarCRM 5.1 is set for release very soon, and it brings a great new feature - native mobile access. The new version of SugarCRM will have support for iPhone and Blackberry right out of the box. This is great news for today’s mobile professional.

Off the wire from PC World: “[SugarCRM 5.1] will let users view the same number of standard SugarCRM modules, or sets of information, on their smart phones and PDAs (personal digital assistants) as on their PCs. Supported devices include the Apple iPhone and Research in Motion BlackBerry, two of the platforms in highest demand among SugarCRM’s customers.”

At DataSync we’re very excited about this release. We have a number of clients who would really benefit from this technology. For that matter we’d love it as well. There’s nothing better than to be out of the office on business or otherwise and feel in touch with your customers.

We plan to offer SugarCRM 5.1 support about 2 weeks after it’s official release. This will give us time to test the new product and upgrade current clients.

Developing open source software is a very unique and rewarding experience. The economic landscape is changing and is conducive to high-velocity open source development projects. We’ve been publishing our development builds (a big release is on the docket), launching our forums, and getting some velocity and automation behind our efforts. Zimbra and SugarCRM are products we’re watching grow extremely quickly, and hope to contribute more to in the future. We’re also watching Alfresco closely, and may include it soon in DataSync Suite.

Even though we’re in the early stages of developing DataSync Suite, it’s been fascinating to see early participation from the community. I was very apprehensive at first that we’d be on our own with development until we had a stable production package out the door. However this has not been the case. We have developers from around the world looking at our code, giving us great feedback, and participating in our thinking process.

We’re still in the early stages of building this product. We have solid development efforts devoted to the project, and are adding capacity (our next developer is starting in a couple weeks!). It’s still a challenge to pick which features to write first, balancing the desire to move forward with the financial restraints of a young company, and releasing code early and often. However through it all the project is moving forward, and we’re growing as a company. I’m excited as ever about the future of open source and how DataSync Suite will impact the world.

Regards,

-Mike

This came off the wires over the weekend. It looks like Balmer and the people at Microsoft have abandoned their bid for Yahoo. We think this is great news for Zimbra, one of our finest software tools. Ballmer threatened an ugly proxy fight for Yahoo, but it now seems that was mostly an intimidation attempt. Microsoft’s exit from this deal may also be related to the fact that earnings fell this quarter for Microsoft, making the stock portion of the deal more expensive.

Overall this is great news for the advertising and open source world. Consolidating search engines won’t be good for the common internet user, choice is always a good thing. Because Zimbra was right in the middle of this deal, it’s also good for this high-growth entity. Zimbra competes with Microsoft Exchange, and has done extremely well at doing so. DataSync has moved countless users from Exchange over to Zimbra with solid results. We think that Yahoo has a strong position to win against the software giant, and we look forward to watching from a front row seat.

Go Yahoo!