Zarafa
Groupware, File Sharing and Web Meetings from One Interface

Open source software works on the principle of collaborative development, often resulting in technically sophisticated deliverables that hinders usability among average users. Most open source software generally does not encompass a good user interface design, making it difficult for an average user to use it. Delft, Netherlands based Zarafa provides a solution to this predicament through its open and compatible groupware platform for email, calendaring and collaboration needs of enterprises.

To address the growing need for sharing and communicating, Zarafa racks up different communication and collaboration tools together such as with Zarafa files and web meetings. The firm’s Zarafa Collaboration Platform (ZCP) is a client for email, calendar, and task needs of enterprises.This can act as a replacement for Microsoft Exchange, which can potentially allow users to save hefty costs. “We use existing open source projects to deliver our solutions, so that enterprises can still use their own database, servers and security models,” says Brian Joseph, CEO, Zarafa.

Zarafa with its history of being associated with email services now delivers enterprise level solutions like web meetings, file sharing, and encrypted emails for sensitive communications. Synchronization of content like email, contact lists and calendar items between Zarafa and ActiveSync enabled mobile devices is possible using the Z-Push server component.

The Zarafa Groupware solution uses the Messaging Application Programming Interface (MAPI), a messaging architecture and program interface for Windows. Collaboration is brought to the browser using Zarafa WebApp, The Web meeting solution by Zarafa enables enterprises to set up secure video conference and calls with other features. “With Web Meetings, organizations can start and invite people to the meeting with a single click, without the need of installing any software,” explains Joseph.

Zarafa has set up strong partnerships with open source companies to bring in new technologies.

Extending its solution to the communication needs within enterprises, the firm has developed Kopano, a dashboard that has a benchmarking feature to help an enterprise in installation through personal recommendations. Kopano monitors configuration of Zarafa software and other third-party components such as MySQL, which eases the troubleshooting process.

Usability remains the major pain point in open source industry; our goal is to break apart the gap between various technologies to provide a seamless, integrated communication experience from one single user interface

The firm delivers its solution both for cloud and on-premise; utilizing its own WebApp and DeskApp client for deployment of solutions at their existing workspace. Joseph adds, “At Zarafa, we provide our customers solutions of their choice from our portfolio, for achieving a multi scalable architecture.” By deploying the open source platform, enterprises have more control on security and data integrity compared to Microsoft Exchange. “Usability remains the major pain point in open source industry; our goal is to break apart the gap between various technologies to provide a seamless, integrated communication experience from one single user interface,” adds Joseph.

The team constantly brings in new technologies and innovations to meet with the standard of changing trends. Zarafa has been a part of Iridium browser project to develop a more secure web browser based on modification of the Chromium code base. The firm also strives toward bringing in a completely new dimension to the usability and security side of the open source space.