Zarafa unveils version 7.0 of its collaboration platform

Messaging and collaboration specialist Zarafa has announced the release of version 7.0 of its groupware product. The Zarafa Collaboration Platform (ZCP) is a Linux-based groupware product which offers IMAP/POP3 access, a CalDAV gateway, native MAPI integration with Outlook and its own WebAccess web client. Visually, the WebAccess client is closely based on Outlook 2003 and offers almost all the features found in Outlook Web Access. The community version of the ZCP has almost unrestricted functionality, but limits the number of Outlook clients served to three. A comparison of the editions is available on the company's site.

This latest major update offers full support for UTF-8 (Unicode) and implements a new IMAP gateway that offers, for example, better compatibility for users running generic IMAP clients such as Apple's Mail.app and Thunderbird. The IMAP gateway also includes new configuration options to store more message information, allowing for "tremendous gains in performance".

Other changes include Python language bindings for MAPI and improved logging. The developers also note that this version includes an upgrade path for 6.x users, with a specific upgrade tool for migrating from 6.40 – users are advised to backup before upgrading. Zarafa will demonstrate the new version at this year's two-day SummerCamp event, which will take place on 30 June and 1 July in Kerkrade at the Rolduc conference centre in The Netherlands; The H will be in attendance.

At the same time, the company also announced the arrival of version 1.0 of Zarafa Archiver (ZA), its integration framework. According to the company, the new add-on tool "dramatically minimises the mail store of heavy users by moving old messages to slower and thus cheaper storage." Zarafa Archiver-1.0 supports ZCP 6.40.8 or later and is available for the Professional and Enterprise Editions.

Further details about ZCP 7.0 can be found in the overview of features document, in the release notes and in the change log. Version 7.0 of the Zarafa Collaboration Platform (Build 27791) is available to download from the company's web site and documentation is provided. Source code for the community edition of ZCP is released under the Affero GPLv3 license.

See also:

• Zarafa announces new Community Hub and certification program, a report from The H.
• Mandriva & Zarafa announce partnership, a report from The H.

(crve)