Yahoo reportedly considers deleting Zimbra

Yahoo could be saying goodbye to more than just search while it reinvents itself as a media company.

Boomtown reported Monday that Yahoo is willing to consider offers for Zimbra, the open-source e-mail company it acquired in 2007 for $350 million. Zimbra's technology has been incorporated into Yahoo's e-mail and calendar products but the hosted services it also offers haven't managed to get as much attention as Google Apps.

One of CEO Carol Bartz's priorities since she took over at Yahoo has been to simplify the company's broad array of businesses. Emerging along with that drive to contain Yahoo's sprawling array of businesses is a shift toward Yahoo as a media company, rather than a technology company. In that context, an open-source e-mail software company that hasn't set the world afire doesn't exactly fit.

Google and Comcast are reportedly among the companies kicking the tires on Zimbra, according to Boomtown, although private equity investors might also be involved. The move comes as Yahoo's inner circle is in New York for Advertising Week, where the company is expected to unveil a new marketing campaign centered on personalization during Chief Marketing Officer Elisa Steele's keynote speech at the IAB's MIXX conference.

[cassio1]

This is completely stupid. Geocities should have been turned into a blogging service. And Briefcase into well, a better briefcase. (or file storage site.) Zimbra is something people pay for, and should be left well enough alone.

Zimbra is a great product, it's the future of email in a cloud environment. What should be done is to integrate more Zimbra functionality into Yahoo Mail.

[ewgino]

I think not spending a lot of time and money on Zimbra email client is a wise choice considering it isn't as simple to use as I would like, Thunderbird and Outlook exists and they have bigger fish to try if they want to compete while doing what they do best.

[thomasbrenneke]

I'm not entirely sure where the great product comments are originating from, as someone who has installed and dealt with Zimbra, the interfaces are horrid and the document tools are horrendous. Google Apps is light years ahead of this product and it has about as much momentum as Open Office right now.

[bonesbautista]

I'd been thinking about looking at Zimbra's products - even though the interface does kind of blow and needs an overhaul. Yahoo has done a horrid job of marketing Zimbra, and with making the services available via wireless devices - I use an iPhone and a VZW BB, and I've just tired of having to find WiFi or tether just to update my calendar - even though I just found out last week (by accident) that Yahoo must have started making their calendar data available via WebDAV (but one calendar only).

I've moved my company and domain to Google Apps, but still considering hosted Exchange or a Snow Leopard Server. Yahoo's lost my business - Zimbra's products are pretty solid but it's just too much of a PITA to use them in a SMB environment and Yahoo's just now getting the cloud space figured out?

[Random_Walk]

Hrm... this wouldn't have anything to do with a recent mega-deal they made - oh, with a corporation who just happens to manufacture and market Exchange.... now would it?

[Viv Collins]

Yes I was going to say the same thing and ask the same question, also a lot of the above comments don't focus on the fact that Zimbra is competing against exchange, its one reason why in evaluating it I black balled it because Yahoo is now beholden to MS so cant compete against them.

[mathcreative]

same question^

[mathcreative]

as Random_Walk

[damiandennison]

Yahoo should just roll over and die. Everything they touch dies or gets in trouble. Remember music match and what they did with it the more I think about this the better I feel if it is true because Zimbra have lots potential to be much better than it is. I just hope who ever buy them really know what they have and is really willing to put the work into making them a much better company which will result in a better product.

[Maclover1]

The first time Microsoft and yahoo talked about a merger I was looking at Zimbra to replace Exchange. I stopped as I knew Microsoft will kill it.

Hopefully somebody will pick it up and turn it into something good enough to replace Exchange. They seriously need to lower the price so they can cut deep into Exchange market share.

agreed. And better calendar integration with blackberry.