On Turning Off Exchange, and Apple and Zimbra

tecosystems: And With That, We’re Off Exchange

Stephen tells it. After nine years I am not an Exchange user. No more .PST nightmares.

Coincidentally, I met with John Robb, Zimbra’s VP of product management, a couple of days ago. Its quite different talking to a smaller vendor that is also a supplier. It was very good to see how determined he was to fix any teething problems – bear in mind we’ve chosen to go hosted.

One very interesting data point was that Zimbra is proving popular in the Apple installed base. Its been a while since the Apple community could point to “enterprise applications” that support the platform. Steve Jobs had a visceral dislike of “enterprisey” long before the term was coined, which hasn’t always helped those that would like to see Apple in enterprise contexts. Zimbra fits the enterprise customer bill though, and potentially helps mixed shops do more with Apple and less with Windows. Sure, we’re talking about is a tiny proportion of the entire collaboration market, but its certainly a nice niche for a startup the size of Zimbra. Maybe Zimbra should ask Cote what widgets they need to support to really start kicking it in Apple land, or maybe he is already telling them.

What comes next for the vendor? Zimbra has some nice things cooking for the next version. Expect more from Zimbra as what Cote calls a “simple suite for collaboration.” (for some reason I couldnt find the link).

That means spreadsheets and other document editors.

disclaimers: Zimbra is not a client, but we are. I edited this post after posting it because I forgot to add some important content.

Apple, Zimbra, collaboration, Microsoft Exchange