Zimbra, the Web-based e-mail and collaboration application, has given educational institutions access to its Zimbra Collaboration Suite software. Institutions will be able to choose whether they want on-site hosting, Zimbra's hosting, or hosting through Zimbra's local partners, depending on their needs.

Those who choose Zimbra's hosting solution will enjoy the benefits of Yahoo's (Zimbra's owner) infrastructure which should mean 99.9% uptime, 24/7 support, and disaster recovery. The fact that it's all hosted in the cloud means that schools and colleges who choose this option won't have to worry about upgrading the software, hardware, or even maintenance.

Satish Dharmaraj, Zimbra co-founder and Yahoo! vice president, puts it this way: “Zimbra is now the only open collaboration solution on the market that is built from the ground up to offer both on-site and hosted options. With the new Zimbra Hosted, we have removed the challenge of managing thousands of mailboxes and encouraged schools to rebrand Zimbra as their own, creating a communications portal that connects all key audiences.”







As far as features go, Zimbra offers a scheduling calendar with RSS and Atom support, offline access via Zimbra Desktop, data privacy and protection, and integration with third party data via Zimlets, which are essentially widgets for Zimbra's products. Furthermore, there's mobile access on a variety of handsets (iPhone included), branding the collaboration suite with your own logo and color scheme, and special packages which include enterprise-grade features such as synchronization with Outlook, Apple products or BlackBerries.

Prices for all this vary depending on the product version and the number of mailboxes, though educational institutions will get substantial discounts.





