[quote user="Rob Howard"]Some great questions in here. Unfortunately I can't answer all of them directly (just yet).[/quote]
Thanks, and I'm grateful for your detailed response.
[quote user="Rob Howard"]1. Yes, we are renaming Zimbra Community to Zimbra Social - I've been calling it Zimbra Social for some time now already.[/quote]
Good to have that clarified. :)
[quote user="Rob Howard"] No, we are using the name Zimbra Sync and Share. Zimbra Files is not descriptive enough and we want our product names to be descriptive. Keep in mind that most customers are re-branding our products.[/quote]
OK. I take your points on the Zimbra Files suggestions. (Though I would still propound that Sync and Share is not ideal. Also, yet other users may be using their own - or even SaaS -installations).
[quote user="Rob Howard"]2. With Microsoft's recent announcement to support running .NET on Linux, Mac and Windows for v5 of .NET, we believe there is a future where the entire Zimbra Social product can run on Linux. We are adding support for MariaDB and have been a long time user of Solr.[/quote]
Yes, MS opensourcing of .NET is promising. Looking forward to getting Zimbra products together, and perhaps with a single integrated install and set-up process available.
[quote user="Rob Howard"]3. I'm not prepared to answer this directly yet, but it's a good suggestion :)[/quote]
We'll take hope from this, and for a opensource future for Zimbra Social. :)
[quote user="Rob Howard"]4. I'm not prepared to answer this directly yet, but it's a good suggestion :)[/quote]
We'll take hope from this too. :)
Of course, there will be many possibilities. And of consequences. (if Sync and Share is a replacement only for Network customers - would Briefcase development continue separately? Or files become a subscription-only feature? If the products are separate, would that detract from the point of integrating the product streams for those providers/users wanting a holistic and integrated experience?)
[quote user="Rob Howard"]5. Yes, this is something we are aware of. Zimbra Social is relatively new for our business service provider channel and Zimbra Sync and Share isn't officially available yet.[/quote]
Understood. In the meantime, I would ask that the product choices be made clearer for some market segments:
a) on the homepage, more effort could be given to address the needs of differing market segments (Personal, Small Business, Nonprofit, Government, Education, Corporate) with links to relevant downloads, resellers, and hosting providers.
b) on the hosting providers page, again the above categories could be produced with hosting providers that are likely to be relevant.
c) on the hosting providers page it should be made clear that at present only Zimbra collaboration is available, as there is currently no way of knowing that and this could be frustrating for a customer seeking a hosted product other than Collaboration - to go through calling 20 providers to find out!
d) on the hosting providers page, when other products come on-stream, the customer should be able to choose from 'Zimbra Sync and Share, Social, Collaboration, All products'.
[quote user="Rob Howard"]6. Yes, this is something we want to encourage (and is related to #3), but clearly we're not there yet.[/quote]
This would be great, hopefully it can help us help you with product development and vice versa. On that topic, pm.zimbra.org is updated very infrequently.
