Zimbra and webOS

I would like to share my experience with webOS in combination with Zimbra Collaboration Suite. For the past two years I’m using Zimbra Open Source edition and I am pretty satisfied with it. It handles my email, contacts, calendar and tasks very well. Call me paranoid, but I don’t like Google or Yahoo! to watch over my personal data. All was working well till I received my first webOS device, an HP TouchPad, which I wanted to connect to my Zimbra server to manage email, appointments, contacts and tasks. Doing some searches I discovered it is possible to use Exchange (ActiveSync) with Zimbra Mobile, but I had the wrong edition of Zimbra. It appeared Zimbra Mobile is available for all Zimbra editions except for the Open Source edition I was using, that’s how they earn their money. I chose to go for the Zimbra Appliance Basic Free Edition. This free edition allows you to create up to 10 mailboxes, which is enough for myself and some family members.

I am using VirtualBox virtualization software, which works with the VMDK from the ZCA zip file. The configuration and migration from one Zimbra edition to the other went relatively smooth. The first thing to test was to setup my HP TouchPad and HP Pre3 smartphone (both collectors items now) and both are connected without a glitch.

One last catch, be careful with the Zimbra default mobile policy. Remote wipe works extremely well if you enter four incorrect your pin codes.

After all I am pretty pleased the way it’s working.

My specs:

  • VirtualBox 4.1 on Debian 5 (Lenny)
  • ZCA 6.0.13 (Installed) upgraded to 6.0.14 (6.0.15 is on it’s way to be released shortly)
  • HP TouchPad 3.0.5
  • HP Pre3 2.2.4