What Makes Zimbra Collaboration Suite a Complete Email Communications Platform

No organization can work efficiently without an efficient email service. It gets even more vital for businesses to have a distinct email solution for all the employees to ensure there’s no communication lag and everyone is on the same platform.

Among the different email service providers, Zimbra collection suite is one of the most popular ones. In 2012, more than 80 million users of Zimbra mail server which made it the third largest, licensed email platform after IBM and Microsoft.

Let’s Discover Zimbra

Zimbra is a collaborative software suite with an email server and web client. It comes in two versions:

1. Open source version
2. Commercially supported version (Network edition) with closed-source components

Zimbra collaboration suite is an open source edition that provides the administrators and end users innovative features to solve the challenges an organization faces in efficiently communicating internally and with the outside world.

Zimbra Advantages

• Zimbra collaboration suite is compatible with Mac, Windows and Linux desktop environments
• Offers better scalability and is easy to maintain
• Flexible enough to integrate applications as web services in AJAX web client
• Zimbra mail server provides secure collaboration and complete control over the email system. It helps an organization and its workforce increase productivity with a set of collaboration tools, without compromising on the security and privacy concerns.

Features of Zimbra Collaboration Suite

An easy to use, open source and secure collaboration tool for email, tasks, calendaring and more, Zimbra collaboration suite comes with hosts of features:

Contacts

If you are unable to remember all the contacts, Zimbra lets you synchronize the existing contact within desktop, Android, Mac and iPhone.

Calendar

Access and synchronize the calendar from your device (Android, Mac, iPhone and desktop) with the Zimbra server.

Open Email Client

It provides access to mailbox from any email client and from Mac, desktop, Mobile or Linux email client using IMAP/POP3/SMTP/Webmail.

Some other features include:

• Secure communication with business class email
• Deploy in a private cloud or Zimbra cloud hosting service to collaborate data in real time without worrying about security and privacy
• Seamless device compatibility so that you never miss an email or meeting
• Mobile security policies such as device-management, device-wipe and PINs for user accounts
• Open APIs and Zimlets to let you easily connect with applications other than the email
• Carrier-grade collaboration gives you amazing speed and performance

Zimbra Benefits for End Users

End users find it easy to use and the platform comes with several benefits including:

• Self-organizing mailboxes
• Filters
• Conversational views across folders
• Group scheduling with free/busy management and controls
• Modern collaboration styles and formats including RSS/ATOM feeds and tags
• Secure, read only access to attachments without the need of a special purpose client software

Why Zimbra?

Apart from the fully-loaded features, Zimbra is a cost effective email solution for businesses. Zimbra is easier to maintain and extend, supports Internet standards, has rich web interface and its updates are released multiple times in a year. Zimbra comes with complete documentation that enables a beginner to learn about the features and efficiently manage the services and admin control panel.

Create a Robust Emailing Solution with Zimbra and Outlook

Offices have started relying on secured mail clients. Zimbra provides this at minimal cost. Zimbra Collaboration Suite (ZCS) is economic, safe and efficient for any kind of office. Couple it with Microsoft Outlook and you have a formidable mail client combination. Outlook can seamlessly integrate ZCS and provide you with a richer mailing and personal information manager (PIM) experience. Let us see in detail how integrating Zimbra mail with Outlook benefits users.

Seamless Integration

Zimbra Collaboration Suite enabled with Zimbra Connector for Outlook (ZCO) allows for a seamless integration in outlook. ZCO is provided as an MSI file which helps in effective integration of Microsoft Windows. This means that it can self-install ZCS on the server, for the client with Windows compatibilities and for the end user it means an Outlook profile creation with PST file and mail integration.

As far as setting up of mail is concerned, the user needs to enter the user name and password only once when they open Outlook for the first time. Connector is capable of configuring mail settings such as port numbers and mail protocols. Connector for Outlook automatically integrates the contacts, mails and folders of the users. Mail synchronizes in the background, while the user can continue using Outlook.

Offline Access

Zimbra Collaboration Suite though great and multifunctional requires internet access, whereas, Outlook with its local backup allows users to access mails and other information without internet connection. Outlook synchronizes mail as and when internet is available. Outlook does not require synchronization commands every time user is online and it uses the synchronization settings from the first time and uses the same setting every time. Another feature of outlook is that it allows multiple functions even when the user is offline such as sending mail, setting of reminders and follow-ups.

Security

ZCS and ZCO use the standard protocol of POP and SMTP with SSL/TLS encryption. This ensures safety of the communication between the system and the server. For communicating with Outlook, ZCO uses MAPI, a protocol designed by Microsoft for Outlook to communicate with exchange servers. These protocols safeguard mail communication from external threats such as hacking.

Conclusion

Zimbra Collaboration Suite is a complete solution when it comes to corporate webmail. Outlook is the complete solution as a mail and PIM. These two if working together can create wonders for the users. From IT security point-of-view, it cannot get any safer when it comes to mail security without hampering productivity.