Open Source > Messaging & GroupwareEssentials

Are you looking for an open source, Web-based e-mail and groupware suite with its own development framework, Ajax interface, more than 50 applications, an active developer community, and millions of end users all over the world? The Horde communication and collaboration suite may not be as well known as the big name commercial offerings, but according to lead developer and release manager Jan Schneider it has just as much to offer, and more.

Yahoo's Zimbra Collaboration Suite (ZCS) and Google's Gmail are considered the two leading pretenders to the corporate e-mail throne held by Microsoft's Exchange. But a small Austin-based vendor is using Zimbra to complement, not replace, Microsoft's market-leading e-mail server.

Cisco Systems said Friday it plans to buy instant messaging platform vendor Jabber, a move that could heighten its battle with Microsoft over the collaboration and office communications market.

The open source Open-Xchange e-mail and groupware server just got easier to deploy on various popular flavors of Linux.

OpenGroupware.org is relatively unknown outside the Open Source developer scene, yet it's one of the oldest projects around: This groupware has origins dating back to 1996.

Funambol has delivered an open source email client for the new iPhone, and has won new funding for its bid to offer a free alternative to the Blackberry.

It looks like Microsoft's proposed Yahoo acquisition is already attracting its share of buzzards: Open-Xchange, a prominent open source competitor to Microsoft Exchange, is looking to lure customers of Yahoo subsidiary Zimbra with an offer of steep discounts.

When the Prince of Wales Medical Research Institute needed a new e-mail and groupware platform to support its rapid growth in staff it decided to deploy the open source Zimbra instead of the popular Microsoft Exchange or Lotus Notes.