MURAL (formerly Mural.ly) from Tactivos (DBA MURAL) in San Francisco is described by the vendor as a digital workspace and visual collaboration tool, designed for creative teams to make the process of design more efficient for distributed teams, working remotely.
Mural is well suited for collaborative work where there isn't high complexity in the job that needs to be done, like drafting simple diagrams or journeys without too much information. Since the items and icons available don't allow a more dinamic or creative approach, Mural is better for day to day activities that don't require high impact presentations.
Zimbra is great for an email system for a medium or large organization with appropriate IT staffing. The system is easy to use for end-users, and has a fantastic web interface. Unfortunately, it is overly complex, when considering staffing requirements and price, when compared with Office 365 or Google Apps for smaller organizations. For other education customers, it is hard to compete with Microsoft and Google providing their services for "Free" now though
The password change is not activated when you access by IMAP, Pop3 or Exchange sync. You have to know that the password change is required and you must go to the website to do so.
The management of mail rules should have more checking options.
There should be more applications compatible with Zimbra, the ones that appear in the Zimlets.
Overall, we were satisfied with the implementation. We perhaps should have spent more time consulting with Zimbra or others regarding best practices but as we got to know the system better we were able to make changes relatively easily after the fact.
Mural was easier to use and share compared with Whiteboard. Whiteboard's functionality is limited. It is also integrated into Teams in an odd way that makes it difficult for team members to refer to old whiteboards. Mural as a stand alone web app is better.
We selected Zimbra because it has a lower cost in the market, offers more development features for its open source, has a very easy to use interface and adjusts to the needs of the company.
Since all of our ROI studies and strategies are performed at the corporate level, I'm really not sure what positive or negative impacts Zimbra has had on our overall business objectives. I can say that at least one positive impact it has on my business objectives, in the medical record department, is the ability to be as paperless as possible.
