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VMware Simplifies Journey to The Cloud With Zimbra® 8.0

VMware Simplifies Journey to The Cloud With Zimbra® 8.0

New Zimbra Collaboration Server 8.0 offers email, address book, calendar and integrated unified communications built for the Post-PC era

Palo Alto, Calif — July 11, 2012 —VMware, Inc. (NYSE: VMW), the global leader in virtualization and cloud infrastructure, today 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.

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."

“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:

  • Click-to-Call any phone number with call routing to device or soft phone
  • Visual Voicemail with inline playback, management, and MWI status update
  • Presence indication and launch of Click-to-Chat with Cisco Jabber integration
  • Cisco WebEx integration to schedule and launch Cisco WebEx sessions directly from Zimbra
  • Call history with placed, received, and missed calls visible within Zimbra
  • Ability to extend or integrate other 3rd party UC solutions

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:

  • Updated browser-based user interface featuring social conversation view
  • Auto-filtering of bulk and distribution lists
  • Expanded search capabilities, end-user managed distribution lists, shared tagging
  • Enterprise Calendar – scheduling suggestions for complex meetings, smart views for managing multiple calendars

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. Zimbra 8 offers simplified IT management features such as:

  • New Virtual Software Appliance that is feature complete and available for any size deployments
  • Simplified upgrades and migrations with less than 60 seconds of mailbox downtime when moving to the new version of Zimbra
  • SaaS administration and self-service experience to minimize end-user demands on IT
  • End-user distribution list management from the web client. A delegated DL manager can create and manage subscriptions to distribution lists based on IT defined policies
  • End-users can search and recover deleted items across Mail, Calendar, Contacts, and tasks based on IT defined recovery retention policies

For product download, video and screenshots of Zimbra 8, and to register for a webinar go to: http://www.zimbra.com/products/whats_new.html

About VMware:

VMware is the leader in virtualization and cloud infrastructure solutions that enable businesses to thrive in the Cloud Era. Customers rely on VMware to help them transform the way they build, deliver and consume Information Technology resources in a manner that is evolutionary and based on their specific needs. With 2011 revenues of $3.77 billion, VMware has more than 350,000 customers and 50,000 partners. The company is headquartered in Silicon Valley with offices throughout the world and can be found online at www.vmware.com.

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VMware,Zimbra and Zimbra Collaboration Server are registered trademarks and/or trademarks of VMware, Inc. in the United States and/or other jurisdictions. All other marks and names mentioned herein may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies. The use of the word “partner” or “partnership” does not imply a legal partnership relationship between VMware and any other company.