So, VMware has officially annonunced that it is buying email and collaboration software vendor Zimbra which was acquired by Yahoo in 2007. Although financial terms of the acquisition were not divulged, some observers say that it is actually lower the amount Yahoo paid for the company when it was still a start-up in 2007.
According to the Press Release obtained by AllThingsD, VMware will utilize Zimbra to further its mission in simplifying datacenter, desktop, application development and core IT services in the enterprise setting.
Although, it might seem unimportant anymore for Yahoo, Zimbra has been leading the open source email and collaboration solution, boasting of 55 million mailboxes with 85% growth during 2009. But the thing is, Zimbra is operating in an environment where one of the major rival happens to be Google with its Google Enterprise solution.
Under the terms of the agreement, VMware will still support Zimbra’s existing products and open source efforts while at the same time enhancing it to fit into VMware’s own product infrastructure. The deal also gives Yahoo the rights to continue utilizing Zimbra technology on its Yahoo Mail and Yahoo Calendar services.
The deal will close end of Q1 2010.
