I Zimbra, A sign of changes for Yahoo Communications? Options

[bragadocchio]

The Yahoo PR blog, Yodel Anecdotal, discusses the acquisition of Zimbra, Inc., which makes a browser-based integrated communications package, which includes email, contacts, shared calendar, search and VoIP all together.

Zimbra is so damn cool is an announcement of the acquistion, from Brad Garlinghouse, writer of the infamous 'Peanut Butter Manifesto

In the "Peanut Butter" memo, Garlinghouse pointed out competing products from Yahoo that cause the vision of the company to be split and unfocused:

We end up with competing (or redundant) initiatives and synergistic opportunities living in the different silos of our company.

• YME vs. Musicmatch
• Flickr vs. Photos
• YMG video vs. Search video
• Deli.cio.us vs. myweb
• Messenger and plug-ins vs. Sidebar and widgets
• Social media vs. 360 and Groups
• Front page vs. YMG
• Global strategy from BU'vs. Global strategy from Int'l

In the announcement of the purchase of Zimbra, Garlinghouse talks of the opportunity to:

...incorporate some of their best-of-breed features (I really like their calendaring) into Yahoo!’s industry-leading communications products.

You know, between that and yesterday's Beta launch of Yahoo Mash, I think Yahoo is moving in the right direction. Now if Mash can replace 360, and incorporate Groups into it (and maybe some of those Zimbra) features, things could get interesting.

I'm already showing Flicker pictures through RSS on my profile page. (PM me if you want an invite - you'll need to provide me with the email address that you want the invitation to go to.)

What do you think?

[joedolson]

There's no question that feature confusion is an issue for Yahoo!...the multiple similar projects model can certainly limit the overall development of the service.

Would love to see Yahoo! collapse their services.

I think Yahoo is moving in the right direction. Now if Mash can replace 360, and incorporate Groups into it (and maybe some of those Zimbra) features, things could get interesting.

Zimbra certainly sounds interesting...I'm definitely PM'ing you for an invite to Mash.

[DianeV]

which includes email, contacts, shared calendar, search and VoIP all together

Just to argue the other side, why would I want to run my email and save my contacts and calendar (if I had one) with another company or online at all? I know, I know, people use Yahoo email and gmail, but I've never understood it. Is this a favorite idea of many people?

The VOIP would likely(?) require that you have Yahoo as an ISP (sounds like DSL).

I dunno; maybe it's because I've been running my own servers since 2000, and have no problem setting up (and deleting!) temporary email addresses. We also have webmail programs on the servers, so it's not as if I couldn't log in via browser from anywhere.

Is there something I don't get about this?

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<sigh> I think I answered my own question. I guess I've been in the Web industry for so long that what sounds easy to me is not so easy for many people. <Oops>

This post has been edited by DianeV: Sep 18 2007, 12:52 AM