Zimbra and Apple

Damnit... I really wish Apple had bought Zimbra. I mean, I respect Yahoo n' all (they're pretty adherent to standards, they're Mac-friendly, AJAX pioneers, etc.), but if Apple would have purchased Zimbra, I believe it could have turned the collaboration industry on its head.

First, Apple would have a truly small biz-to-enterprise-ready collaboration suite. It competes with Exchange in handling email (actually bests it, I think), has great spam filtering built-in, has kickass calendaring and resource management (well, the resource management could use a bit of cleaning up), and the forthcoming 5.0 has task management and the "briefcase" function that is really going to make Zimbra irresistible to many (I'll be taking a weekend and upgrading us immediately after its release).

I think Zimbra is such a good fit for Apple due to the fact that it's so open: it uses MySQL for data storage, ClamAV for anti-virus, SpamAssassin for spam filtering, tomcat (now jetty) for the mail engine, postfix for mail delivery, OpenLDAP for directory, and a number of other open source packages for its internals. It supports IMAP, POP, MS-MAPI (in the paid version), iCal (you can publish/subscribe to/from any iCalendar-supporting app, such as iCal, Outlook 2007, Evolution, Sunbird, google calendar, etc.), WebDAV (in 5.0), and CalDAV support is planned soon after, which means that it will work read/write with Apple iCal, Evolution, Sunbird, and (supposedly eventually) Outlook. Zimbra can, and does, operate as a complete replacement for Exchange... something that Apple could do really well to provide, as it would turn their pokes into the enterprise market into deep, gouging jabs. Some more facts:

• Zimbra 5.0's mobile interface was made for the iPhone. It's gorgeous.
• It could easily be integrated into Open Directory even further, as it already uses OpenLDAP for its directory.
• It already works with Address Book, iCal, Apple Mail, Finder (WebDAV), Safari. And swimmingly, at that.
• It would force Apple to hone their clustering offerings, as Mac OS X is the only platform that isn't currently supported in those configurations.
• It would be even one more reason for Linux fanbois and developers to love Apple. ;)

But alas... it is too late. Yahoo owns Zimbra now. And if Microsoft buys Yahoo, which I don't believe will happen, I'll be one horribly disappointed Zimbra fan.

(UPDATE) Ooooh ooh, I just thought of something regarding OpenLDAP integration: in a managed client scenario, OpenDirectory would provide a users' Zimbra mail server configuration, which would be provided to all necessary Apple (and perceivably third-party) applications via LDAP, so when he/she fires up Apple Mail, no configuration would be necessary, as it's all provided via their OpenDir profile. Tasty!

iTablet?

I think it could happen. Why?

• For some time now, Apple has had the software built into the OS to recognize handwriting (Inkwell, which works surprisingly well), and now, as show in the iPhone, multi-touch input, so they have all of the software necessary for a multi-input (read: non-keyboard/mouse-based) interface, making a keyboard less necessary.
  
• The move to Intel makes possible much smaller logic boards, thus smaller form factors. Have you seen some of the subcompacts out there in the PC world? They're tiny! Imagine Apple's take on the sub-com (no, I do not think they'll do just a standard sub-compact and/or replace the MacBook with it).

Now, I'm not saying this because I would like to buy one... I probably wouldn't. Unless someone gave one to me. But then I wouldn't be buying it. Or if they were ultra-cheap... but honestly, I think a full-on laptop would be best for me, personally. But, if Apple does do a tablet... (I do so love lists):

• No optical drive. They could ship it with a 4 or 8GB flash drive that is write-protected that contains an OS-restore image.
• Firewire 400, USB, ethernet, WiFi, bluetooth. No audio (usb digital only), save the built-in speaker and mic. No DVI, but possibly mini-DVI.
• Apple will make it a point to point out that most software is downloadable via disk image, from the publisher, these days (including Adobe CS2/3, QuarkXPress, and just about everything else except Office 2004... but 2008 is nearly upon us).
• Probably no iSight.
• There would be no keyboard. Keyboard completely on-screen, a la iPhone, but a larger implementation (obviously), possibly with a bezel-effect so as to not obscure completely content behind it.
• It probably won't be called iTablet. iSlate? MacSlate? MacScribe? MacBooklet?

I dunno. Thoughts?

Google Apps via iPhone

Ok, over the past few days I've been really geeking out to the various Google apps (especially when used via iPhone!), and today I tried out yet another that completely blows me away, and will be infinitely useful to me: Google Notebook. Basically, it's an app that is used to record bits of information of all kinds... command line syntax, URLs, lists, recipes, you name it. And it works splendidly via iPhone (you can only add to your "mobile notes" from the iPhone, but you can view all notebooks via iPhone).

The rest:

• Reader - has consolidated 10 of my favorite Safari tabs into one(!), and is also amazing via iPhone. FAST.
• gmail - again, iPhone... it supports conversation view, and is arguably better than MobileMail. Full composition support.
  
• Documents - Very usable via any standard browser, but really nice via iPhone! You can't edit, but you can view every type (docs, spreadsheets, presentation). View only.
  
• Photos - the already-minimal (but beautiful) interface is amazingly slimmed on the iPhone. I wouldn't say it's beautiful, but its very usable and fast. Gets the job done, and gets it done well (doesn't hold a candle to .Mac galleries, but hey, it's free!). View only.
  
• Calendar - VERY nice iPhone interface. Couple the slick phone interface with SMS alerts, and you have a killer MobileCalendar replacement... except for the fact that you cannot change calendar items after they've been entered on the iPhone (via "quickadd"). So if you do "dinner with jenny tonight" instead of "dinner with jenny tonight at 7pm," you're stuck with an all-day event.

Overall, Google is really going for the jugular with their apps on iPhone, and across the board on the desktop. Their apps are really making me question my subscription to .Mac. I don't think google's intentionally doing this, but they've been building one heckuva foundation for years that they're finally starting to cash in on... and it's really compelling.

Test post via iPhone

This is yet another test post via the iPhone.