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Sep. 18, 2007

Today, Yahoo announces that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Zimbra, an email and collaboration software provider.

Under the terms of the deal, Yahoo will acquire Zimbra for approximately $350 million in cash.

Jerry Yang, Yahoo's CEO said "our industry-leading communications products, including Yahoo Mail, are critical to the future growth and success of Yahoo. Zimbra's good talent and innovative technology will help to extend our core Mail offerings."

"Additionally, Zimbra's successful relationships with large ISPs are key as we expand our worldwide partner network and continue to focus on our commitment to being the partner of choice," added Yang.

Yahoo's acquisition of Zimbra will help the company to expand its presence in universities, businesses and through ISPs by enabling organizations to host email on or off premises with their own domain.

Zimbra's offerings include rich, AJAX-based email, calendar and contact management features that can be used both on and offline.

Their open platform enhances the user experience by enabling creative mash-ups called Zimlets that tie in valuable Web services to email, and can be tailored to fit the needs of every customer.

Satish Dharmaraj, Zimbra co-founder and CEO said "we are excited to combine ourselves with one of the world's most successful Web mail services and extend Yahoo's credible brand and leadership in the email business to universities, businesses and ISPs globally."

He added "with Yahoo's ad and content network, the possibilities for Zimlets and other applications are endless."

Yahoo Mail celebrates its 10th anniversary in 2007 and continues to be one of the world's most popular Web mail services with about 250 million users worldwide.

The service provides people with more ways to connect to their friends and online contacts and is fully integrated with Yahoo's many other popular services to make it easy to access all the Internet services people need.

"As an industry leader, we are constantly approached for different e-mail solutions," said Brad Garlinghouse, senior v.p., communications and communities, Yahoo Inc. "With Zimbra, we will bring the security, reliability and anywhere access of Yahoo Mail to people at school, work and home, further enhancing our leadership position in Web mail."

Following the acquisition, Zimbra will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Yahoo. Satish Dharmaraj will continue to lead the Zimbra team based in Yahoo's Sunnyvale headquarters and will report to Brad Garlinghouse.

The transaction is subject to customary closing conditions, including regulatory approval. It is expected that the transaction will be completed in the fourth quarter of this year.

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Source: Yahoo News