Yahoo Introduces Updated Zimbra App Platform

Yahoo doesn't look like a fast moving tech company at the forefront of innovation but from a developers' point of view it's actually one of the most interesting and open large tech companies out there. And, among rumors that it wants to ditch the enterprise apps suite, the company has formally launched Zimbra Collaboration Suite (ZCS) 6.0, a major overhaul of the software. But the most interesting part is that the new suite is much more open to outside developers, a growing trend for Yahoo, thanks to the new Zimlets API.

ZCS 6.0 is an open-source communications and collaboration suite that combines an email client with a fully featured calendar. The new version comes with several new features and improvements and introduces a three panel view, similar to the one in Yahoo Mail, and also tabs to make it easier to switch between the different components. Several other new features have been introduced, the top 300 most requested ones claims Yahoo, like a better spell checker and better file sharing but the biggest addition is the enhanced Zimlets platform.

The new API platform allows third-party developers to create much more complex widgets to run inside the Zimbra suite and there are already a number of very interesting apps created for it. There is a Twitter client Zimlet allowing users to utilize the microblogging service in a dedicated tab while others have created a VoIP app to allow voice calls to be made from the Zimbra software.

Yahoo has been closing properties left and right and is trying to focus more on its core services leading to rumors that Yahoo has been trying to sell off Zimbra but, apparently, it hasn't been able to find any interested suitors at the price it is asking. Yahoo acquired Zimbra in 2007 for $350 million and since then the company grew considerably, now boasting 50 million paid mailboxes and 100,000 clients. This is well below the 100 million licenses for Microsoft SharePoint or IMB Lotus notes' 150 million but it's faring a lot better than either Google Apps or Zoho.