Zimbra Collaboration Suite, an integrated calendar and e-mail system, will replace K-State’s current e-mail client, WebMail, and calendar system, Oracle K-Calendar, beginning in January 2009.
Zimbra is essentially a combination of WebMail and Oracle K-Calendar. It will provide users with an easier way to schedule calendar items, organize their e-mail with 6 gigabytes of space, filter unwanted e-mail solicitations and access their files remotely.
Provost Duane Nellis said the new system will provide better services, functionality and access. For the first time, alumni will be included in the transition to the new system, as well as students and faculty.
James Lyall, associate vice-provost for information technology services, said data from a survey and needs analysis collected in spring 2008 showed “a clear desire from all K-State constituents for an integrated e-mail and calendaring system.”
“Zimbra was chosen because it will most effectively meet the needs and requests of the campus,” he said.
One very important aspect of the new system will be the superior spam filtering. The needs analysis showed a need for better spam controls. In addition, Zimbra’s 6GB of space will replace WebMail’s current 20 megabytes of storage space.
Zimbra also allows students to send and receive large attached files up to 15MB compared to WebMail’s 10MB. This means e-mailing large attachments like photos will be easier.
Only BlackBerry users can synchronize their phones with WebMail. Oracle K-Calendar does not support synchronization. Zimbra will support a much wider range of accessibility with handheld and mobile devices for both calendar and e-mail functions.
Committees designed to help support this new system and a campuswide collaboration effort are in the works before Zimbra is phased in over the next six to 18 months.
Zimbra to replace WebMail
Published: Tuesday, September 2, 2008
Updated: Tuesday, September 2, 2008
6 comments
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Webmail sucks. It's about time.
John
I sync my Palm OS-based Treo to Oracle Calendar without issue... a conduit exists between Palm Desktop and Oracle Collaboration Suite (which includes Calendar). From the Zimbra documentation I've read, I don't see how I will be able to sync my Treo once the Zimbra migration takes place. As someone who works at K-State identifying technology solutions, I'm not convinced Zimbra can meet the needs of current and future users at K-State. I'm not comfortable saying this move won't be a costly mistake for the university.
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LarryKC
Webmail is a client, Zimbra is replacing the E-Mail system. K-State does not appear to imposes any limit on E-Mail storage, keeping inbox sizes down is a perfectly normal practice which commercial providers also use (one service I use automatically moves inbox messages when there are more than 200 read messages, or messages older than 45 days). K-State suggests you keep your inbox under 20MB, and it moves your inbox at 50MB. But, I've had GB's of E-mail.Webmail has a 10MB attachment limit, but attachments within the central K-State system can be larger (20+?) I've been syncing my Blackberry with Oracle K-Calendar just fine, but the Calendar service is only available to student employees, graduate students, faculty and staff.I do look forward to better integration of Calendar and E-Mail, but wonder of support for other Smart Phone devices (such as upcoming the Google Android). And, am curious to see how much better spam filtering is. Though personally, I don't trust spam filtering done by somebody other than myself. I hate losing email because somebody else has decided it's spam.Now if only they would increase storage on the public Unix servers. 8MB isn't what it used to be.
