Zimbra EmailAt first glance, Yahoo is  struggling on multiple fronts. But take a closer look and you may discover that Zimbra — the open source email system Yahoo acquired in September 2007 — is thriving under Yahoo’s ownership. Skeptical? Consider the continued growth of Zimbra’s channel partner program.

Indeed, Zimbra generated roughly 52 percent of its revenue from VARs, hosting partners and other solutions providers in 2008, up from 34 percent in 2007, according to The VAR Guy’s Open Source 50 report. Plus, Zimbra’s partner network grew to 665 companies in 2008, up 40 percent from 475 partners in 2007, The VAR Guy’s research shows.

Overall, Zimbra says more than 30,000 organizations are leveraging 20 million Zimbra email and collaboration inboxes. The company’s latest market sweet spot appears to be colleges, where Zimbra Hosted for EDU has carved out a niche for itself. Eager adopters include Kansas State University, according to CNet.

So, is Zimbra really thriving under Yahoo? Are the stats above too good to be true? The VAR Guy believes his research is rock-solid. But he realizes it’s difficult (er, impossible) to determine Zimbra’s financial momentum since Yahoo doesn’t offer up those stats. Plus, many of those 30 million Zimbra inboxes could be of the free variety.

Still, Zimbra appears to be growing its channel partner program pretty rapidly.

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7 Comments on “Zimbra Email: Thriving Under Yahoo’s Ownership?”

  1. Chad D Says:
    January 19th, 2009 at 1:53 pm

    Does The VAR guy use Zimbra for any of his needs? The last time I tried Zimbra, which was long before it’s acquisition, I found it a bit tricky to setup. Now I’d be worried to put any customers on it, with the way Yahoo is looking.

  2. The VAR Guy Says:
    January 19th, 2009 at 2:10 pm

    Chad D: Full disclosure: The VAR Guy does not use Zimbra for his day-to-day email. He uses a hosted solution (back-end) with the Microsoft Entourage front-end. He doesn’t love Entourage but grew frustrated with open source alternatives.

  3. buzzup.com Says:
    January 19th, 2009 at 10:53 pm

    Zimbra Email: Thriving Under Yahoo’s Ownership?…

    At first glance, Yahoo is struggling on multiple fronts. But take a closer look and you may discover that Zimbra — the open source email system…

  4. Zimbra user Says:
    January 19th, 2009 at 11:55 pm

    I have used Zimbra desktop for about a year, off and on. I also own a couple of others. I love Zimbra, but it recently choked and blew out a lot of email I would rather have kept. I will go back to it when they release 1.0. It’s slick, fast, and usually quite stable.

  5. John Holder Says:
    January 20th, 2009 at 5:29 pm

    Hi-
    Nice Article. I just wanted to note that we do not track Open Source mailbox usage because….well that would be creepy.

    All 20+ million mailboxes are paid version mailboxes. It’s really impossible to tell how many Open Source mailboxes are out there; you can bet it’s higher than 20 Mil.

    John Holder

  6. The VAR Guy Says:
    January 21st, 2009 at 4:51 pm

    Did The VAR Guy jinx Zimbra? Only a few days after this glowing blog post about Zimbra, news is spreading that Zimbra’s founder is leaving Yahoo.

  7. WFTL Bytes! for Jan 20, 2009 | WFTL Bytes! Says:
    August 19th, 2009 at 3:36 pm

    [...] Zimbra thrives under Yahoo! [...]

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