Zimbra is fast becoming one of the most popular alternatives to Microsoft Exchange, and thanks to the range of different features that it has introduced; Zimbra 8 has quickly garnered a lot of public acclaim. ZImbra 8.0 places heavy focus on cloud computing, and aims to create an infrastructure that provides complete services directly from the cloud. A number of new features have been added, and the release on a whole is a lot more stable than compared to its previous versions. Best of all, ZImbra 8 also provides a free trial option. You can download and use Free Zimbra for the first time before going for the full version.
One of the best things about ZImbra 8 is the ease of use with which information can be accessed. Regardless of the device you have, as long as it is a smart phone or a tablet, you can use it to access all of your information that you have uploaded to your personal ZImbra 8 cloud. This includes social contacts and networks, calendar notifications, emails, enterprise applications and address books. ZImbra 8 also provides support for various desktop clients, including Outlook via POP, CalDav, IMAP, MAPI and CardDAV. On the other hand, all mobile devices are supported through the Exchange Active Sync and the Blackberry Enterprise Server. ZImbra 8.0 also provides an option to share information between Active Directory and Exchange by using LDAP and WebDAV. Importing of Google Calendar or Yahoo! Calendar is also a very seamless process, and works like a charm.
Zimbra 8.0 is based completely in the browser, and can be accessed quite easily; it comes with full feature support for the Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox and Apple Safari. Those who have slower internet connections or older browsers can also use the standard HTML version. However, Zimbra 8 really shines in its advanced AJAX interface, with top of the line features such as drag and drop functionality to attach files in email windows, easily customizable filters and most importantly, WYSIWYG composition. Compared to Zimbra 7.2, the user interface of ZImbra 8.0 has been simplified extensively, and now allows you to sift through emails with minimal hassle.
There is a conversation view option for emails, while all emails are sorted in a chronological order, and emails with the same titles are grouped in one batch. The search function has also undergone improvements, and now provides capability to search from over 200 different kinds of attachments.
Thanks to the partnership between VMware and Cisco, a unified communications module is now provided within ZImbra 8, allowing you to resolve all communications needs from within the Web App of ZImbra. It can support Visual Voicemail, chatting options, Cisco Webex as well as a variety of other communication options without any additional installation. The mobile integration has also been greatly enhanced, allowing users to access ZImbra from their smart phones and keeping up to date. It provides support for Android, iOS and Blackberry, and with cloud sync, you can get all your settings on your phone. Start today with your Free Zimbra account and see what Zimbra Email and Collaboration can do for you.