Zimbra which claims itself to be a leader in open source messaging and collaboration has been acquired by Yahoo for $350 million. With its rich AJAX-based e-mail, calendar, and contact management features for both online and offline use Zimbra has been credited with creation of Zimlets which can be used for offering updated information inside the email.




As per Yahoo this expansion would help them to create a stronger presence among businesses and universities by allowing organizations to host e mail on or off their premises with their own domain. This smart move by the company has given it some teeth to fight Google in coming months. This might also give some push to open source initiative even though we all know that Yahoo is not a very big supporter of open source. I would not be surprised if we see some of Zimbra's powerful Ajax features appearing in services offered by Yahoo. I feel Zimbra will act as an asset in the Ajax initiative of the company.