Yahoo’s Zimbra Desktop Brings Offline Access To E-Mail, Documents
“The 263 million Yahoo Mail users who were anxious for change now have something they can sink their teeth into.”
Yahoo’s free all-in-one e-mail client offers Web 2.0-like features in an offline package, putting it head to head with Microsoft’s Outlook.
The seed that Yahoo sowed all the way back in September with its $350 million acquisition of Zimbra is finally starting to sprout. The first real fruits of Zimbra are now becoming apparent with the release last week of the Yahoo Zimbra Desktop.
The company has released the first beta version of Zimbra Desktop, which brings offline access to the Yahoo Mail, Gmail and AOL Mail Web e-mail applications, as well as some Zimbra tools.
“Yahoo under the new plan apparently hopes to lure AOL and Gmail users into its service.”
The software makes a fine alternative to Google Apps and Microsoft Office despite uncertainty over Yahoo’s future. The utility offers POP and IMAP access as well as offline access to the iCal calendar function.
Additionally, Zimbra Desktop also offers tool for creating documents and spreadsheets as Yahoo moves to compete with Microsoft and Google. An analyst does not see Yahoo’s Zimbra Desktop as competition for Microsoft Office — yet.
The e-mail software, available as a free download for Windows and Mac, works when the user is offline, and it offers options for basic online word processing and spreadsheets, task management, and file storage.
Zimbra, the Yahoo open-source messaging and collaboration unit that tends to get ignored amid all of the Microsoft-Yahoo merger talk, is now offering an office productivity suite.
Satish Dharmaraj, cofounder of Zimbra and a vice president of Yahoo, said the new application takes the “world-class collaboration suite and makes it available for everyone for use anywhere, anytime, with any e-mail account.”
For example, while viewing an e-mail message, users can see their schedule by hovering over a date, or see the status of a flight by looking at a flight number. Like Google’s Gmail, the software also lets users convert e-mails into threaded conversations.
Similar to conventional offline clients, such as Microsoft Outlook, Zimbra Desktop offers support for both POP and IMAP mail protocols, making it possible to import Yahoo Mail, AOL Mail, Gmail, and many other types of free e-mail, and then merge them under the Zimbra roof.
“We have aimed to blur the line between an Ajax Web-client and a conventional desktop application, and this release is a leap towards reaching that goal,” Zimbra’s Mike Morse said in a blog posting Thursday.
To stay organized, there is also calendaring, task management, and online document storage. Zimbra Briefcase, part of desktop, enables users to store files online and Zimbra Tasks offers to-do lists with start and due dates, progress, and percent complete, and priority ratings. The calendar uses the iCal standard for taking a calendar offline and e-mails can be labeled with advanced tagging.
The latest beta, version 3, is available immediately as a free download.