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Zimbra is the only real competitor to Exchange.  It was bought by Yahoo about a year ago.  Its great product on the Enterprise side with even outlook connectivity.  

It way cheaper than Exchange and supports alot more OS'es, (Unix, Linux, OSX).  I worked for an ISP that purchased it for their broadband customers and it was very popular.  At one time I had read that Comcast was going to do the same, which would seriously push this product into the lime light.

I was glad that MS was not getting Yahoo, as they would have surely killed this off.

Yes yes yes yes!

Like snakedoctor said, one more reason to be glad MS didn't buy this company.

Zimbra is a great product, our school recently just switched from an old webmail portal to the latest version of the zimbra system. The web based ajax system is great and best of all it supports push with the iphone/ipod. I'll have to give this a try.

@Snakedoctor1

"It ... supports alot more OS'es, (Unix, Linux, OSX)."

So, essentially, you're saying, "It supports Unix"

This was long, long, long, overdue. I was thinking what the hell when they killed off pop access through clients. Good to see them giving users at least one good option.

I'm unclear on why this app is any more "cloudy" than using Outlook against IMAP/POP. OK, it's nice that Yahoo gives free users IMAP access with this, but beyond that, if you already have Outlook/Windows Live Mail, which most do, particularly if you have a paid Yahoo Mail account or don't use Yahoo Mail, what's the point of installing yet another mail app?

Ahhhhh mikegalos, always the MS J@ck@$$ in the crowd here, I think you and Weelittlehorn are really the same guy/gal.

Maybe I should have said it supports a real OS....UNIX.

Zimbra is cheaper than Exchange, uses standard protocols, has the same client on Windows/OSX/Unix/Linux supporting the GUI standards of each and works the same way on all browsers.  Exchange cant do any of that, because its proprietary and MS wont do any of it so they keep people locked in.

Exchange is a great, closed product, has been the leader in Email for many years but it cost way to much and in MS fashion shoves their way of doing things (full OWA only with IE) down your throat.

I would love to see this product seriously challenge Exchange, to the point that MS has to pull an IE8/Open doc and cave into the logic of standards.

@resiler this app totally a Java/Ajax app, like a web page on your PC kind of.  It keeps a copy locally but when its connected its like running the webmail on your PC/Mac.  Totally free.  Its not like a traditional fat client.

So its free and if you move between say Windows/OSX/Ubuntu its the exact same app on all machines, you data is in the cloud and this local webpage/app connects to it.

Live Mail is doing the same thing but only for Windows.

@Snakedoctor

Your post of "more operating systems" really was deceptive since it only was referrig to various implementations of Unix.

That Zimbra works on several Unix implementations despite all the OS forking is, perhaps, an achievement but a bit of a sad reflection of the state of alternative operating systems.

That the only real competition for Windows is dozens of semi-compatible Unix-clone systems is something we should all be complaining about and not cheering. The lack of innovation is staggering.

Yes the lack of innovation on both sides is staggering.  

Exchange should have been on SQL two versions ago, instead of using the Jet database it uses now.

Open source alternatives should have moved passed the utopia of "Open" and put together the pieces like Zimbra has, sold a product and supported it.

Here is hoping that MS never gets Yahoo and kills of Zimbra.