Opennet snaps up Zimbra's regional distribution deal

Zimbra, a Yahoo! company, is the open source server software for email and collaboration. It provides a set of end-user and administrator benefits that make it a flexible solution for deployments of all sizes, from SMEs to multi-thousand user enterprises.

Since 2000, Opennet has been a distributor for Red Hat in the Middle East and Africa region. Opennet's strategy has been to work closely with its channel partners in the region and their customers by providing a complete range of consulting and professional services, assisting organisations and companies with the assessment, design, and implementation of open source solutions ensuring high availability, reliability, performance, scalability and manageability within IT environments. This is the first time that Opennet has diversified into distributing other open source solutions.

David Allinson, General Manager at Opennet MEA, explained:

"We are very excited with this partnership. As open source becomes a more viable option for businesses across the region, solutions like Zimbra provides the communication capabilities today's executives demand. The collaboration suite offered by Zimbra brings together calendar, email, voice over IP (VoIP), mobility and other tools, combining them in an online platform."

"We are pleased Opennet has joined Zimbra's worldwide partner and distribution network," said Andy Pflaum, Vice President, Zimbra Channel Sales. "Demand for Zimbra's next-generation email and collaboration is skyrocketing and distributors like Opennet are helping to scale our channel with top-notch support and services."

Zimbra provides an AJAX web-based interface that can be accessed from anywhere via a web browser. It also integrates with a variety of desktop clients, including Outlook, Thunderbird, Apple Mail and more. Zimbra provides over-the-air synchronization to the iPhone and BlackBerry Smartphones, and can be easily modified to provide customised solutions for e-mail, group calendar, contacts, file storage and web document management. The Zimbra Collaboration Suite server is available on Linux and Mac OS X for on-premise deployment and also as an outsourced hosted email solution via the Zimbra Partner network.

Opennet will be expanding its channel network to cover distribution and support for Zimbra across the region.