Ubuntu users have been able to access Zimbra for the past year. But now, they will have direct access to Zimbra’s next generation email and calendaring solution. On August 7, 2008, Zimbra (a Yahoo! company) has announced that Canonical, sponsors of Ubuntu, will give users direct access to Yahoo! Zimbra Desktop through the Ubuntu Partner Repository.

The inclusion of Yahoo! Zimbra Desktop in the Ubuntu Partner Repository provides Ubuntu users with best-of-breed collaboration technology that is built natively for the Linux platform. With Yahoo! Zimbra Desktop, Ubuntu users will have access to Yahoo! Mail, Gmail™, AOL Mail and any IMAP or POP enabled e-mail account, such as work, personal and school accounts, from the same place, even when they are not connected to the Internet. Additionally, Yahoo! Zimbra Desktop allows people to use the iCal standard to take their calendar offline.

Yahoo! Zimbra Desktop provides the same sleek collaboration experience as the Zimbra Web client version including advanced calendaring, self-organizing mailboxes, powerful search, tagging, and mash-ups with Web services including Flickr, Yahoo! Maps and Amazon. In addition, Yahoo! Zimbra Desktop offers 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.

You can read full story at http://www.ubuntu.com/news/zimbra-desktop

No clue about Zimbra? Here are key features of Zimbra Desktop.

• Email, contacts, and calendar all in one application
• Available for Windows, Apple, or Linux desktop computers
• Easily set up Zimbra, Yahoo! Mail Plus, AOL and Gmail email accounts with the Account Wizard
• Any POP or IMAP email account can be added to Zimbra Desktop
• No limit to the size of your email storage
• It works online and offline

Feature details can be found at http://www.zimbra.com/products/desktop_features.html