VMware Simplifies Journey to The Cloud With Zimbra® 8.0

VMware, Inc., the global leader in virtualization and cloud infrastructure, recently announced Zimbra® Collaboration Server™ 8.0. For many organizations interested in cloud-based email, Zimbra 8.0 offers a clear path for moving messaging and collaboration to the cloud. Easily deployed in private or public clouds, Zimbra is flexible enough to deliver the solution that best fits an organization’s needs – both now and in the future. As part of this announcement, VMware is making Zimbra 8.0 Beta available for download to organizations worldwide.

“VMware Zimbra 8 features significant capabilities and enhancements to make collaboration easier and more secure for both users and administrators. With more than 70 million paid mailboxes worldwide, Zimbra is one of the largest and fastest growing email providers globally and we have seen strong customer and partner momentum in Malaysia as well which we are confident will continue to grow,” says Mr. Laurence Si, Country Manager, VMware in Malaysia

The newest version of Zimbra is built on the strength of VMware’s cloud expertise, offering all organizations from enterprise companies to small business the option to deploy a browser-based email solution in a private or public cloud, while delivering the advanced features and enterprise functionality that users demand. Further simplifying the IT experience, Zimbra 8.0 is available as a virtual software appliance that can be deployed in as little as ten minutes and requires minimal ongoing management.

“We’re witnessing a fundamental shift in the way people work, and in turn a new set of demands that are put on IT infrastructure and applications like email and integration communications,” said John Robb senior director at VMware. “Zimbra 8 is designed to make end users more efficient by connecting them with their data while providing IT departments a simple way to manage the transition to a public or private cloud and help deliver the benefits promised by the post-PC era.”

Zimbra 8.0 connects users to their personal cloud with a redesigned interface and a smarter mailbox that helps manage the flow of information through their email, calendar, voice and social channels. New to Zimbra 8.0, VMware has partnered with Cisco and Mitel to offer unified communications capabilities embedded within Zimbra. These deep integration capabilities allow users to connect their voice and message systems in a unified inbox, enabling Click2Call, voicemail, presence, and chat all from within the Zimbra Web app. Zimbra 8.0 features a user interface and the integration options to connect users to their cloud and enables a new way to work in the post-PC era.

“In the post-PC era employees are collaborating in innovative new ways. More than ever, our customers are asking for cloud-based collaboration services that deliver compelling, integrated, productivity enhancing user experiences,” said Laurent Philonenko, vice president, Cisco Unified Communications. “Cisco works with innovative partners like VMware to integrate collaboration applications such as Cisco Jabber and Cisco WebEx — that bring together presence, instant messaging, voice and video, voice messaging, desktop sharing and conferencing into a consistent experience across PCs, Macs, tablets and smart phones.”

“We evaluated an upgrade to Sun iPlanet and wanted a best-of-breed Web experience; strong calendaring platform; and compatibility with the users’ diverse range of desktop systems, email clients and Web browsers all in one package.

We ultimately selected VMware® Zimbra® Collaboration Server to meet our collaboration needs because it offers an advanced user experience UniMAP’s students, faculty and staff required and scaled well across the multiple campus locations. I believe that Zimbra is the leader in next-generation collaboration software and trust that it will continue to evolve as UniMAP grows as an institution because of Zimbra’s openness and flexibility,” said Mr. Nasrudin Abd Shukor, Director ICT Center, Universiti Malaysia Perlis.

“We decided to migrate from a Linux-based email application to VMware Zimbra when overall service and support levels dropped as our user and our database numbers increased. Not only has VMware Zimbra lived up to our expectations, but more importantly it’s also given us a strong return on our investment.

Despite the exponential growth in our user accounts and database, we continue to enjoy high availability and superior performance, and to benefit from the messaging and collaboration capabilities that VMware Zimbra provides,” says Mr. Rick Foo, IT Manager, Veritas Architects

“Mitel and VMware have delivered virtualized voice apps to more than 2,000 Mitel clients of all sizes,” said Alan Zurakowski, director of business development and strategic alliances for Mitel. “By offering an out-of-the-box integration with Zimbra, we’re extending the benefits of virtualized voice apps by providing end users with a great, streamlined unified communications experience, while simplifying usability, deployment, maintenance and upgrades for both Zimbra and Mitel apps.”

Key Features of Zimbra 8.0

• Integrated Unified Communications- Now unified communications are built into Zimbra with an all-new voice application that features out-of-the-box integration with Cisco and Mitel UC solutions accessible through the main user interface. This integration also features:
• Connecting the Personal Cloud – As part of the transition to the post-PC user experience, Zimbra has been updated to provide leading browser-based functionality featuring a smarter mailbox that helps users manage the flow of information through their email, voice and social channels. This functionality includes:
• Managing ITaaS in the Cloud Era – Zimbra Collaboration Server 8.0 offers a consolidated collaboration service for messaging, calendar and contacts with enterprise IT security controls built to be delivered as a service as a private or public cloud solution.