The potential for rich, dynamic applications that run through a browser and are hosted remotely is a key selling point for so-called Web 2.0. Now we are seeing some of the realization of that potential, and Apple looks to be positioned to effectively leverage these new applications. I offer Zimbra as a case in point. Zimbra is a company that has created a rich AJAX application allowing one to view vast amounts of disparate content easily.
Zimbra can see the usefulness of AJAX and has built a pretty impressive tool, and I have only used the hosted demo they have available on their site. Not only are they using AJAX to push the processing onto the client but they are leveraging the huge code base of free software, like Postfix, MySQL, Apache, Asterix, etc. to develop and extend their tools. This is shrewd since it has recently been shown that Free Software and Open Source (my good freind hesa is rolling his eyes) software have significantly fewer bugs than proprietary software.
The big deal about all this is that Apple recognizes this and is partnering with Zimbra. The tools that Zimbra develops might canabalize users away from some of Apple’s tools. There are also some redundant aspects to all this; Apple already ships Postfix and Apache installed for example, and firefox is easy to download. But Apple also sees that this is a way to provide a rich client (and server) for the enterprise folks who want the kind of groupware functionality that Outlook provides. This way Apple has an Outlook-killer without having to develop it in house.
I am not crazy about the Zimbra license however. It seems completely unnecessary to have yet another license, especially since Zimbra seems to have worked out an effective business model that could easily leverage the GPL. One wonders if the investors have exerted their influence and forced Zimbra to license their software with irrelevant legalistic mumbo-jumbo. Rather surprising really since the venture cap people all seem to have a pretty good understanding of Free Software, one of them even worked at Red Hat.
As for the tipping point of Web 2.0, yeah, I think this is it. I think this is in fact the manifestation of a new type of software that will be hosted on the network, not on the desktop. This is the big paradigm shift in store for us for the next few years. So ditch Windows, install more memory, and forget about your hardisk because you won’t be needing that anymore, its all already out there.
Personally I'm still dubious over AJAX because JavaScript is still an awful language to develop client side applications compared to any of it's desktop forebears.
For anyone who has done desktop development it's like stepping back in time (I'm sure it seems a revolution to developers who have only ever known request-response web development). While that doesn't directly affect the end user, so long as apps like Google Maps and Zimbra work, it is holding back software productivity.
Another worry is that if AJAX apps kick off big-time, you're going to get a large number that will lock out Safari and Firefox users. At the moment they are mostly the realm of clever people with a strong commitment to cross-browser / cross-platform technologies - cutting-edge web developers. Mass adoption will mean managers telling staff only to test on one browser.
I've been mucking with Zimbra for about a week now, and I'm looking at dumping mail.app for a week to see how well Zimbra works as a day to day client and interface for calendars and addressing and beyond.
I'm also anxious to see Safari support Zimbra as opposed to just being able to use Firefox...
I looked at Zimbra news page and I don't see a press release saying that Apple is helping Zimbra. But I do remember seeying a press release saying that Zimbra will release a iSync plugin. Not being able to sync with Palms and cellphones is a big problem for many solutions, like Zimbra and OpenXchange.
I'm also curious where Jeremiah heard the news that Apple is partnering with Zimbra. Or maybe he's slipping us an April Fools joke?
See the Apple logo here: http://www.zimbra.com/partners/
Thanks for the link. There's more mentioned here:
Zimbra - Strategic Parners
Robert,
Zimbra has plans to release support for mobile devices as well. Watch out for the release sometime in April.
http://www.zimbra.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2155&highlight=treo
Hum :
http://www.zimbra.com/partners/var_partners.html
[i]Apple Desktop support via the Zimbra Connector for Apple[/i]
Do they mean support for Mail/iCal/Address Book/iSync or something else ?
Apple Leopard Server's iCal Server is CalDev compliant, so is Z5, going to make for some intriguing opportunities for integration, especially given the progress of the iSync connector for Zimbra. You can get a free trial of Zimbra, with 2-minute activation, and try out the Apple desktop sync if you're interested at http://www.01.com, with 24/7 complimentary Apple support.