Email and collaboration biz Zimbra has lost 93 per cent of its value in eight years, and has been bought by Synacor for just seven per cent of the price Yahoo! paid for the company in 2007.

Scott Dietzen, currently the CEO of Pure Storage, was the president and chief technical officer at Zimbra from March 2005 to October 2007, and was in place when Yahoo! paid $350 million for it in September 2007. Synacor is now buying Zimbra assets for $24.5 million – $17.3 million in cash and the rest in shares. The assets involve Zimbra talent (people), technology, and patents.

The short version of Zimbra's history looks like this:

Zimbra product released in 2005.

Yahoo ! bought Zimbra for $350 million in September 2007.

bought Zimbra for $350 million in September 2007. It was sold on to VMware in January 2010.

Telligent bought it from VMware in July 2013.

Telligent changed its name to Zimbra in September 2013.

Verint bought the Telligent part of Zimbra – customer support and digital marketing communities – in August 2015.

Synacor bought assets from Zimbra in August 2015.

The Zimbra acquisition will make Synacor the largest provider of ISP email solutions in the US. It says, "Zimbra brings hundreds of millions of free and paying users in 135+ countries, adds new customers to Synacor's roster including 2500+ small business customers and 900+ government customers, and adds a valuable network of 1000+ value added resellers and 500+ hosting partners." That's great, but the value loss since the Yahoo! purchase has been immense.

What happens to Patrick Brandt, the chairman and CEO at Zimbra, is unclear. Unless he is joining Synacor it would appear he has no company left to run.

Let's hope that Pure's IPO is not followed by a similar diminution in value of 93 per cent in eight years. ®