Zimbra Desktop Takes Web Mail Offline

Web-based e-mail has come a long way since the early days. At first it was just a convenient way for home users to check their mail through a familiar, Web-based interface. Today, Webmail providers have evolved into full-service messaging centers, offering gigabytes of storage and a host of integrated features, such as calendaring, spam blocking, and malware filters. No wonder Webmail is the preferred e-mail tool for a growing number of business users, too.

There's just one problem: To access the Web, you need to be online. When you're not connected, your entire inbox goes missing -- even the messages you received last week. Fortunately, a number of vendors are working on solutions to this very problem. One of the most interesting, Yahoo's Zimbra Desktop, released its third beta test release today.

Zimbra Desktop attempts to combine the familiarity and power of Webmail with the convenience of conventional desktop e-mail clients, such as Outlook Express or Mozilla Thunderbird. It installs as two major components. The first is a desktop application that provides a UI similar to the standard Zimbra Web-based e-mail client. The second is a server that runs in the background, silently caching messages from your e-mail providers to the local disk.

When your PC has access to the Internet, Zimbra Desktop works pretty much just like an ordinary Webmail service. You can access messages from your AOL, GMail, Yahoo Mail, or any other POP/IMAP accounts, just as you would normally.

The difference is revealed when you lose your network connection. Because of the local cache, you can view previously-received messages just the same as if you were online. You can even compose new messages and Zimbra Desktop will synchronize them with the server the next time you're online.

Of course, if you really want Zimbra's full feature set, you need to install Yahoo's Zimbra Collaboration Suite. This is a full messaging and collaboration server system to rival Microsoft Entourage. With it, the Zimbra Desktop client gains the ability to manage contacts, calendar items, and appointments as well as e-mails (and these will be synced to the local disk, also).

Because Zimbra is a subsidiary of Yahoo, however, the latest versions of the Zimbra software are building in special features just for Yahoo Mail customers. For example, beginning with Zimbra Desktop Beta 3, all Yahoo Mail users can have POP/IMAP access to their accounts when they use the Zimbra Desktop client. Previously, only Yahoo Mail Plus accounts had that feature. And a future version of Zimbra Desktop will enable calendar and address book syncing for Yahoo Mail, as well.

For now, Zimbra Desktop is still in beta, so it's not officially supported by Yahoo. That means you probably will want to hold off using it for full-time business use, for now. But if you'd like to try it out, it's available to download for free at the Yahoo Zimbra Web site. More information and installation instructions can be found on the project's Wiki.

Is Webmail your messaging weapon of choice or are you sticking to traditional desktop software? Sound off in the PC World Community Forums.