Zimbra releases Zimbra Desktop

E-mail software company Zimbra has released the early versions of their Zimbra Desktop. This is a web based email application which works both offline and online.

The company is well known for their open-source email products which compete with similar offerings from companies like Microsoft.

Zimbra Desktop supports the Windows, Linux and Mac platforms. The early edition of this application however lacks a calendar application. However, the developers have confirmed that the next release of Zimbra Desktop, expected in early summer, will include support for offline calendaring.

Scott Dietzen, president and CTO of Zimbra had said sometime last year that they were developing an offline utility that would act as a Zimbra agent to recreate all the data needed for the same browser experience, connected or not.

Zimbra Desktop works by setting up a small http server installed on the local user’s machine which maintains the Zimbra information store. A company representative said on this: “Access controls are not an issue because the service doesn’t run on any restricted ports. The Zimbra desktop is running on port 7000 and it’s an open user port used to run at the user level.”

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