SUNNYVALE, USA: Zimbra, a Yahoo! company, a leader in open source, next-generation messaging and collaboration software, released the Yahoo! Zimbra Desktop Beta.

Yahoo! Zimbra Desktop gives everyone access to a simple, centralized place to manage work, school and personal e-mail even when they are not connected to the Internet. Through internet protocol support called Post Office Protocol (POP) and Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP), Yahoo! Mail, AOL Mail and Gmail can now be accessed offline at the same time, from the same place. Additionally, Yahoo! Zimbra Desktop allows users to use the iCal standard to take their calendar offline.

"Zimbra is focused on creating communication and collaboration solutions that ease the pain points of traditional e-mail, and switching between multiple e-mail accounts is one of the communication headaches that users encounter on a daily basis," said Satish Dharmaraj, Zimbra co-founder and Yahoo! vice president. "With Yahoo! Zimbra Desktop, we have taken our world-class collaboration suite and made it available for everyone for use anywhere, anytime, with any email account."

Yahoo! Zimbra Desktop gives users access to the same sleek Zimbra experience, and showcases the latest technologies that have until now only been available via Web-based applications including:

* "Mash-ups" with other services; for example, when viewing an e-mail, users can see their schedule by hovering over a date, or see the status of a flight by looking at a flight number;
* Powerful search that can quickly scan a user's e-mail and pull up relevant content;
* Built-in organization capabilities including automatically converting e-mails into conversations and advanced tagging; and
* Advanced calendaring that gives users access to their most important appointments and schedule even when they are on the go.

Yahoo! Zimbra Desktop also includes a number of features designed to help users stay organized, such as document creation, spreadsheets, task management and document storage, giving users a robust alternative to other desktop applications. New features include online and offline access to:

* Zimbra Documents, a document and spreadsheet program, which gives users the ability to embed complex objects such as photos into documents and spreadsheets. With the addition of Zimbra Documents, Zimbra Desktop users can easily create and edit documents and simple spreadsheets without having to switch between desktop programs or e-mail large attachments.

* Zimbra Briefcase, which allows users to upload, store, and conveniently access any files including spreadsheets, documents, presentations and others. Instead of keeping all attachments in e-mail you can simply store them in the same place with Zimbra Briefcase, and access them from anywhere, online or offline.

* Zimbra Tasks, a task management system which allows users to manage to-do lists simply and easily by monitoring start and due dates, priority, progress and percent complete.