Interactive Ideas signs Zimbra, the world’s leading Open Source based messaging and collaboration

Agreement will further strengthen Open Source software portfolio

Enfield, London – 26th October 09 – Interactive Ideas, one of the UK's leading value-added Software and Technology distributors, joins forces with Zimbra to provide enterprise and hosted service provider ready next generation messaging and collaboration solutions to the UK reseller channel.

Interactive Ideas is working closely with Zimbra to deliver the Zimbra Collaboration Suite (ZCS) which features an award-winning AJAX web client integrating email, contacts, shared calendar, instant messaging, tasks and online document authoring and sharing.  The Zimbra server is built on open technology and runs on Linux, Mac OS X and virtualisation plaforms and can be deployed on-premise or as a hosted email solution.

Mike Trup, Interactive Ideas, Managing Director commented, “Interactive Ideas has maintained a long and profitable partnership with Red Hat for over a decade and has witnessed a steady increase in interest in not only Red Hat solutions, but Open Source technologies in general. With the addition of Ingres and now Zimbra, Interactive Ideas aim to make a portfolio of enterprise ready solutions based on the subscription based Open Source model to our reseller channel and provide them the required support and service needed to understand and profit from this emerging market.”

Trup continued “As the leading Open Source based messaging and collaboration company; with more than 50 million users of their commercial and licensed Zimbra Collaboration Suite (ZCS) solution, in addition to the millions of users of their free Open Source Edition, and backed by Yahoo!, Zimbra fits perfectly into our solution mix.”

“Zimbra is focused on improving the overall messaging and collaboration experience through innovative and flexible communication, calendaring and document authoring technology,” said Lars Nordhild Rønning, General Manager for Zimbra in EMEA. “We designed ZCS from the ground up to be deployed by Value Added Resellers and Hosted Service Providers, who can provide Zimbra as a service, and are excited that Interactive Ideas is bringing Zimbra to its customers.”
Abtech, a Value Added Reseller that works with Interactive Ideas to provide technology and consultancy to meet the exacting needs of some of the largest enterprises and government institutions, recently selected Zimbra as its Open Source messaging and collaboration platform of choice.
Sales Director, Nigel Wright said, “Like Interactive Ideas, we have sought to strengthen our Open Source solution portfolio in response to customer demand.  Zimbra is an enterprise ready solution and will complement our other Open Source solutions from Red Hat and Ingres.  Zimbra is a real alternative to proprietary email products and gives our customers the functionality they require at a price that meets their budget.  We are already seeing considerable interest in Zimbra.”

Key End-user Benefits

•    Elegant Experience. Innovative AJAX-based web client with search, shared calendar and mail that is integrated with contacts and calendar

•    Flexibility. Use web client, Zimbra Desktop, Microsoft Outlook, or Apple for email, contacts, and calendar
•    Stay Connected. Support for mobile smart devices: Blackberry (via partner solutions), Treo and etc
•    Freedom of Choice. Support of Windows, Apple and Linux computers
•    Save Time. Zimlet "mash-ups" simplify task

Key Administrative Benefits

•    Better Reliability. Faster online move, backup and recovery of individual or a group of mailboxes
•    Cost Effective. Native hierarchical storage management and clustering. Achieve a 50-67% reduction in Total Cost of Ownership compared with Microsoft Exchange
•    Easy to Maintain. Simple to integrate with Microsoft Active Directory and existing LDAP directories
•    Extensibility. Web services integration with existing enterprise applications
•    All in One. Integrated anti-spam and anti-virus

Pricing and Availability

For more information please contact Aileen McGowan, Zimbra Product Manager at Interactive Ideas Tel: 020 8805 2999 aileenm@interactiveideas.com

About Interactive Ideas

Interactive Ideas is a leading value-added distributor of Software and Technology products, establishing themselves in the competitive IT industry by providing excellent customer service, proactively working with their partners and being able to identify emerging technologies.
Recognition as a leading specialist distributor has come from leading awards from Computer Reseller News, Microscope and PC Retail in the past year with Interactive Ideas also being recognised as one of Red Hat’s top three distributors across EMEA. Past awards include the Inner City 100 award for growth and future entrepreneur of the year from Enterprise magazine.

Structured into two divisions; the consumer retail team works with retail, mail order and TV shopping companies to provide market leading and unique software and peripherals for the home and home office user. The corporate reseller team works with resellers, VAR’s and systems integrators to provide software solutions, licensing and enterprise Linux for companies of all sizes from small business to the enterprise. For more information please visit: www.interactiveideas.com

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