Just when you thought Zimbra couldn't get any sexier, it adds the sexiest feature of all: Offline. That's right: As Satish is set to demo at eTech on Tuesday, Zimbra Desktop (as they're calling it) is a "rich offline-capable client that allows users to have the same AJAX-based collaboration experience as offered by Zimbra’s popular web-only client." In short, Zimbra is now sexy even in the boring old world of of Just when you thought Zimbra couldn’t get any sexier, it adds the sexiest feature of all:Offline.That’s right: As Satish is set to demo at eTech on Tuesday, Zimbra Desktop (as they’re calling it) is a “rich offline-capable client that allows users to have the same AJAX-based collaboration experience as offered by Zimbra’s popular web-only client.” In short, Zimbra is now sexy even in the boring old world of offline applications.From the press release (which, um, hasn’t been released yet :-): “The introduction of Zimbra Desktop means that Windows, Linux, and Mac users worldwide are no longer dependent on Internet connectivity for rich, browser-based access to Zimbra’s collaboration platform,” said Satish Dharmaraj, CEO, Zimbra. “The universal access that Zimbra Desktop provides represents a critical achievement; today AJAX-based Web 2.0 technologies are available no matter where a user is – at the office, on the road, or even in the air.”This is very, very cool. Zimbra accomplishes this by essentially having a micro-server running on the desktop, which syncs up with the Zimbra server upon connection. But for the user, all they need to know is that Zimbra just works, offline and online. So, what does it cost? $0.00. Or, if you want it supported (and I can’t imagine unsupported email) then you pay $25/mailbox/year for a minimum of 25 users for the Standard Edition. That’s fantastic. Now, let’s put this in perspective: Exchange is 34% of the corporate desktop server market in 2007 and Domino is 18% (Radicadi) Microsoft Outlook is 60% all of corporate email clients in use (Radicadi)BUT…The vast majority of Exchange accounts are old versions of Exchange…just itching to be upgraded to something other than Exchange.And why? Because…Outlook 2007/Exchange 2007 is painfully slow. It’s slow, in large part (according to Microsoft), because people use email. That’s right – the more email you have, the worse the application experience becomes. So, the answer to Exchange performance issues is to simply stop using it, or to delete all of your email (Hey! Microsoft said it, not I….) I never thought Microsoft would lose the email war, but now I’m starting to wonder….Zimbra is an exceptional piece of software. I’d like it fully licensed under the GPL, but I can’t think of much I don’t like about the product itself. And now that it’s fully usable offline as well as online…why not switch from Exchange to Zimbra? Open Source