Developer(s) Zimbra, Inc. Type Collaborative software | Development status Active | |
 | ||
Initial release July 26, 2005; 11 years ago (2005-07-26) Stable release 8.7.4 / March 2, 2017; 24 days ago (2017-03-02) Repository git.zimbra.com/repos/zimbra-foss/.git | ||
Zimbra Collaboration Suite (ZCS) is a collaborative software suite, that includes an email server and web client.
Contents
Zimbra was initially developed by LiquidSys, which changed their name to Zimbra, Inc. on 26 July 2005. The Zimbra Collaboration Suite was first released in 2005. The company was subsequently purchased by Yahoo! on September 17, 2007, and later sold to VMware on January 12, 2010. In July 2013, it was sold by VMware to Telligent Systems which changed its name to Zimbra, Inc. in September 2013. It was then acquired by Synacor Inc on 18 August 2015.
According to former Zimbra President and CTO Scott Dietzen, the name for Zimbra is derived from the song "I Zimbra" by Talking Heads.
Edition
The software consists of both client and server components, and a desktop client. Two versions of Zimbra are available: an open-source version, and a commercially supported version ("Network Edition") with closed-source components such as a proprietary Messaging Application Programming Interface connector to Outlook for calendar and contact synchronisation.
Zimbra Desktop is a full-featured free desktop email client. Development was discontinued under VMware's stewardship in 2013 but was restarted in February 2014. In addition, the webclient features an HTML5 offline mode starting with version 8.5.
The ZCS Web Client is a full-featured collaboration suite that supports email, group calendars, and document sharing using an Ajax web interface that enables tool tips, drag-and-drop items, and right-click menus in the UI. Also included are advanced searching capabilities and date relations, online document authoring, "Zimlet" mashups, and a full administration UI. It is written using the Zimbra Ajax Toolkit.
The ZCS Server uses several open source projects (see the section, Included open source projects). It exposes a SOAP application programming interface to all its functionality and is also an IMAP and POP3 server. The server runs on many Linux distributions. OS X Server support was dropped with version ZCS 7.0.
ZCS can synchronize mail, contacts, and calendar items with open-source mail clients such as Evolution and also with proprietary clients such as Microsoft Outlook and Apple Mail, either through proprietary connectors or using the ActiveSync protocol, both available exclusively in the commercially supported version. Zimbra also provides native two-way sync to many mobile devices (Nokia Eseries, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, iPhone, Android).
Software license
Starting with version 8.5 the Zimbra Collaboration Suite (ZCS) source code is available under the terms of the GNU General Public License version 2 (backend) and the Common Public Attribution License version 1 (frontend).
Previous versions were released under the Zimbra Public License (ZPL). The Free Software Foundation accepts the license as being a free software license and refers to it as being identical to the Yahoo! Public License with the exception that Zimbra, Inc. provides the license, rather than Yahoo!.
Included open source projects
The ZCS Server uses open source projects such as:
It previously used: