Zimbra customers spooked by Microsoft's Yahoo bid

Zimbra customers are deeply concerned about Microsoft's bid for Yahoo because they feel that the deal would mean the end of the Zimbra collaboration and communication suite.

In October, Yahoo acquired Zimbra, whose suite competes with Exchange and has a heavy open-source component. For those reasons, it will not fit with the product strategy at Microsoft, which will likely pull the plug on its development and put it out to pasture, Zimbra customers are saying in interviews, blog postings and discussion forums.

"It's pretty terrifying for me," said Cedric Halbach, senior systems administrator at The Metropolitan Companies, which has used Zimbra successfully for companywide e-mail for about two years. "If Microsoft bought Yahoo today, and it was accepted and done, I'd immediately look to transition from Zimbra to another product."

Previously, The Metropolitan Companies used Exchange, which the company found too expensive and unstable. With Zimbra, the cost for The Metropolitan Companies' 175 user licenses is about one-fourth of what it would be for Exchange, and the Zimbra software has been significantly more stable, Halbach said.

"We absolutely refuse to move back to Microsoft Exchange. We don't want to be forced to move back to it. We'd have to look elsewhere in the market for another competing program, and right now Zimbra is the best competitor," Halbach said.

A spokeswoman for Microsoft said the vendor wouldn't comment on what plans it might have for Zimbra should its $44.6 billion offer for Yahoo be successful. Zimbra didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

At the time of Yahoo's acquisition of Zimbra for $350 million, many Zimbra customers declared themselves displeased about the deal, citing what they perceived as Yahoo's lack of expertise as a provider of enterprise software.

However, Zimbra has apparently continued executing on its pre-acquisition plan and is operating as usual, which Zimbra customers have been grateful for. On Tuesday, Zimbra officially launched the suite's 5.0 version with enhancements including support for BlackBerry devices and Outlook 2007, as well as a new to-do application for tasks management, an instant-messaging application that allows group chats and the ability to work offline with Zimbra Desktop.

"I was a bit nervous at first about Yahoo buying Zimbra, but Yahoo has made good on its word not to disrupt Zimbra," said Andy Armagost, systems administrator at Brigham Oil & Gas in Austin, Texas.

However, the Microsoft bid has him a lot more concerned about Zimbra's future. "We're all pretty much holding our breath right now," he said in an interview. "This latest news is quite more troublesome than the Yahoo news was."

"Microsoft hasn't historically been the most friendly to open-source projects. I wouldn’t have the greatest faith for the future of Zimbra if they took over Yahoo," Armagost added.

Moreover, Armagost and his boss, the company's IT manager, aren't big fans of Microsoft server software because they consider it clunky and unreliable.