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
Zoho Cliq has allowed our office to be remote-worker friendly since onboarding. Teams are able to meet throughout the day with ease. Completing "@" messages allow for inter-office communication in a semi-public space (i.e. on our #Sales channel, a sales team member can "@" me to ask a question, and if I don't answer, a teammate can reply first). And having the audio/screen share capability allows "parking lot" conversations to not derail the chat. The only caveat really is your available screen real estate to manage multiple conversations at once. Honestly, as a product, it feels as potent as Slack or Discord (minus silly bots). I don't have a single complaint about the platform.
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.
Zoho Cliq has become an integral part of our daily business. Every single member of our team who has a job involving a computer has an active Zoho Cliq license and uses the tool continuously throughout the day. It cuts down on meetings and allows the team to feel very connected to one-another even though we are distributed geographically.
Ease of use! It's easy enough to open chat, start audio sessions, screen shares, or even sending files. The fact that individual "emojis" can be applied to normal chats is wonderful. Allows to "acknowledge" without lengthy back-and-forths. Automation via CRM turns Cliq into a productivity tool beyond communication. Simply put, I don't how you could improve the system (save for a few UI boosts). As it stands, it's a powerful tool that is easy to pick up and play with.
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.
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.
We selected Zoho because it was already a part of the Zoho toolset we were using. They offered a free trial which was a big help in our purchasing decision. Our team looked at one other alternative but we weren't satisfied with the pricing quote we got from them and the fact that we were already using other Zoho apps made our decision easier.
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.
