One of the big web business stories of the month is Google Apps gearing up. Google’s moves drew a reaction from Microsoft, and one from Zimbra.
Now there’s action from Yahoo, in the form of the acquisition of Zimbra. The deal gives Yahoo a web office suite: Yahoo Apps? YApps? Maybe Yahoo will continue to use the Zimbra brand name. Anyway, here’s a term ugly enough for web use: YAppZ.
Read/Write Richard has an excellent post on the reasons for the acquisition.
- While Yahoo is more consumer-facing than enterprise-facing, YAppZ might aim initially at the small business market.
- Zimbra comes with well-developed APIs, so YAppZ services can be mashed up with other Yahoo (and non-Yahoo) web services. This fits with Yahoo’s intention to build an open platform.
- Talking of open, YappZ is open source (Zimbra uses the Mozilla Public License) and downloadable.
I’d expand on the last of these points, but Matt Asay has already developed the point that Zimbra is a great example of a disruptive, open-source business. His post makes it sounds as though it might also turn out to be a great use of 350M of Yahoo’s dollars.
Finally, the prize for “best title of an article or post about this story” goes to The Register for Yahoo! Agrees! To! Acquire! Talking! Heads! Song!
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