It’s been rumored for quite some time, but now it’s finally official: VMware have acquired Zimbra from Yahoo.
I’m actually very excited over this, and I think it can turn out to be a great combination. Since Yahoo hasn’t paid much attention to Zimbra at all, I hope the new owners will. As I wrote back when the deal was still just a rumor, with VMware’s competence in virtualization and Zimbra’s collaboration software, this could turn out to be one heck of a virtual appliance.
Moreover, I think VMware and Zimbra’s view on software aligns fairly well. Both companies are giving away free licenses to SMBs and then charge money for upgrade licenses as they grow. VMware is giving away it’s VMware Server (which is a great product) and Zimbra is giving away Community Edition of their email appliance. Combine those two products and throw in some optimizations, and you’ll get a very powerful combo for SMBs. As they grow, they can scale into the commercial versions with VMware ESX and Zimbra Network Edition.
