7 ms·

Zimbra has more users than Gmail. And they are paying.

28 points by rokhayakebe 18y ago

trapper 18y ago
I am not really surprised at this. If you ask for money with a good product, people often pay. A fact that seemed to be lost on many in the tech community in the last few years.
- rokhayakebe 18y ago
  The fact that Yahoo bought it probably helped gained more customers. They can push it to their existing corporate customers.
- davidw 18y ago
  The problem is one of economics. As Varian and Shapiro say in this book: http://www.squeezedbooks.com/book/show/7/information-rules-a-strategic-guide-to-the-network-economy http://www.squeezedbooks.com/book/show/7/information-rules-a... "Information commodities trend towards the marginal cost: zero, meaning that selling information commodities is not likely to be successful in the long run."
  - trapper 18y ago
    I think the second word is the issue: commodity implies stagnation. If you have innovation, there is always a moving target, and thus the ability to charge. Making replicas isn't a good business model. Creating something new and capitalising on it is.
smakz 18y ago
It's actually pretty astonishing to me how many web sites don't charge anything. It reminds me of how Bill Gates gloats about the early days of MS how there was this huge hobbyist scene in software and very few were getting paid (not sure how accurate that really is but it seems similar to what I see today). Developers of start ups should get used to the idea that it's OK to charge people for a service you provide. It provides psychological incentives to the buyers that they are buying something and therefore are entitled to a real level of service, and it provides real cash to the founders to properly grow the business. Not to mention, it is trivially easy to start charging people these days, with services like Amazon FPS. I really thought back in 2000 that companies based around the 'advertising will pay for everything' model would have learned their lesson, but clearly it's not the case.
- sachinag 18y ago
  There's a lot of hate for ad plays here on HN, and that's fine. (My startup is a commission-based model as well.) But let's be honest - there are plenty of great, useful apps supported by advertising and lead generation where the end-consumer pays not a penny: Google, Yelp, YouTube, Zillow, SideStep, YellowPages, TicketStumbler, and so forth. And plenty of media sites make money on ads: Ars Technica, Pitchfork Media, TechCrunch, Huffington Post, and so on. Let's not let the quest for ramen profitability distract us from looking long-term.
  - smakz 18y ago
    I don't 'hate' companies that see advertising as their only revenue source, I just question both it's effectiveness in running a sustainable business and the hesitation that software developers working as founders have in charging real money for the quality services they are building. I don't count media companies, as I'm not sure of any ycombinator start ups focused on media (in the sense of being blogs, such as tech crunch or hpost, etc.), and those list of technology service-oriented companies you list, it's fairly questionable how great any of their business models really were/are. Everyone likes to point out Google and YouTube, but they forget google owns online advertising, period. And YouTube never really made any money. Don't get me wrong - it's great being an acquisition target and it's a great way to make some quick cash, but I think generally founders under-estimate the potential of their own company of being self sustaining and being very profitable with a paying customer base.
  - cstejerean 18y ago
    Agreed, a website with low recurring expenses and high volume of quality traffic can probably survive just on advertising. The problem with advertising-only models IMHO is that ultimately survival of the company depends on other companies' advertising budgets instead of the value it's products provide to their end users. At the moment that situation does not seem ideal.
    - jshen 18y ago
      "The problem with advertising-only models IMHO is that ultimately survival of the company depends on other companies' advertising budgets instead of the value it's products provide to their end users. At the moment that situation does not seem ideal." Um, depending on users paying you is equally problematic. I imagine this moment isn't good for that either.
krschultz 18y ago
I use Zimbra at work (though we use the open-source version and don't pay a dime), and Gmail for personal use. They both have strengths and weaknesses, but I see Zimbra as the better professional solution. The search in Gmail is great, but no amount of tags can replace good old fashioned folders in Zimbra - especially if you subscribe to a bunch of FOSS project mailing lists - I just don't need to read it all that often but when I do I want it in one place. The calendaring system in Zimbra is useful for scheduling meetings as well.
- neilc 18y ago
  Strange -- when I've had to use Zimbra in the past, I've found it to be a very painful and frustrating experience. In comparison, GMail is an utter joy.
- lacker 18y ago
  But you can use Gmail tags exactly like folders, if that's what you want.
  - mapleoin 18y ago
    labels
    - lacker 18y ago
      You can also use Gmail labels exactly like tags, if that's what you want. ;-)
- enomar 18y ago
  Can you explain why you can't get all your FOSS project emails "in one place" with labels? Can't you just create a filter in Gmail to tag them as "FOSS" and then auto archive them?
wastedbrains 18y ago
bad headline since it is only talking about paying users.
- ryanwaggoner 18y ago
  No, it's not.
  - timf 18y ago
    It's unclear to me since it says Gmail gets 31.2M and Google Apps (which includes email) has another 10M. Also, I think the article may be wrong, it seems like Zimbra is only claiming 20M. Also note ajkirwin's point above, the measurements also seem to be conflated.
ajkirwin 18y ago
I hate the blending of terms in this article. It makes for a shitty read. Here's an example: "Zimbra actually has 31.4 million users in the United States, squeaking by the 31.2 million unique monthly visitors Gmail received in the US during the month of January." Take note. In the first, they put out 31.4 million, but that's a total user count and in the second, they put out 31.2 million, but that's unique monthly visitors. Two totally different statistics, but they act as if they are the same. GMail likely has a LOT more user accounts, plus, this doesn't account for people who get their email through SMTP/POP or IMAP.. Shame on you VentureBeat. Shame on you.
- timf 18y ago
  That's a good point. But where is the 40M figure even coming from or what possible event could have added 20 million new paying customers in the last six weeks (see my 20M comment). EDIT: CNET employee says he confirmed with Zimbra.
  - rokhayakebe 18y ago
    I think they had a deal with Comcast.
    - timf 18y ago
      But that was in 2007.
- tjogin 18y ago
  I don't understand why magazines like VentureBeat and Wired love to talk up individual companies so much. All the damn time it sounds like this company is so incredibly amazing and all the time the numbers are inflated and skewed as much as they can possibly get away with. Is the honest truth not interesting enough? They're getting paid by them, right?
  - quilby 18y ago
    They probably arent getting paid- there is just nothing too interesting going on in the startup world right now that they have to make trivial things into incredible stories.
timf 18y ago
Where is the actual source of this information? The Zimbra front page says 20M mailboxes (does not say how many are paid or not). There's no press release or RSS entry. The last number I see approved in some way by Zimbra is a 20M paid mailboxes article from January on http://www.zimbra.com/about/news.html http://www.zimbra.com/about/news.html What, they gained 20 million new paying customers in the last six weeks (with no big, new deal with another mail provider)? And where is that chart from in the venturebeat article? There are no sources for anything listed. I don't find this information credible.
- timf 18y ago
  And there's a new CNET entry that says 40M but... it references the venturebeat link as its source not any actual Zimbra statement. http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-10190071-16.html http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-10190071-16.html EDIT: The author of that says: "I talked with the company. They just haven't released the formal PR yet" I guess we will see later. Interested to know what the number actually means and how on Earth that amount of recent growth could be possible.
  - deleted 18y ago
    [deleted]
  - cellis 18y ago
    Facebook is adding 700k+ users a day. But they aren't facebook.
    - timf 18y ago
      And those users aren't paying anything.
c00p3r 18y ago
I never saw zimbra in any internet cafe in India or Nepal. It's all about facebook, (five screens of ten) gmail, and some hotmail (mostly japanese). Seems like they are living in their own reallity.
thepanister 18y ago
I used Zimbra for the first time, when I became Stanford student. When I logged in to my Stanford University email, I found out it's Zimbra... Zimbra is really great product, and yeah... more than 40 MM are using it; What is the problem with that?

28 points by rokhayakebe 18y ago

I am not really surprised at this. If you ask for money with a good product, people often pay. A fact that seemed to be lost on many in the tech community in the last few years.

rokhayakebe 18y ago
The fact that Yahoo bought it probably helped gained more customers. They can push it to their existing corporate customers.
davidw 18y ago
The problem is one of economics. As Varian and Shapiro say in this book: http://www.squeezedbooks.com/book/show/7/information-rules-a-strategic-guide-to-the-network-economy http://www.squeezedbooks.com/book/show/7/information-rules-a... "Information commodities trend towards the marginal cost: zero, meaning that selling information commodities is not likely to be successful in the long run."
- trapper 18y ago
  I think the second word is the issue: commodity implies stagnation. If you have innovation, there is always a moving target, and thus the ability to charge. Making replicas isn't a good business model. Creating something new and capitalising on it is.

smakz 18y ago

It's actually pretty astonishing to me how many web sites don't charge anything. It reminds me of how Bill Gates gloats about the early days of MS how there was this huge hobbyist scene in software and very few were getting paid (not sure how accurate that really is but it seems similar to what I see today). Developers of start ups should get used to the idea that it's OK to charge people for a service you provide. It provides psychological incentives to the buyers that they are buying something and therefore are entitled to a real level of service, and it provides real cash to the founders to properly grow the business. Not to mention, it is trivially easy to start charging people these days, with services like Amazon FPS. I really thought back in 2000 that companies based around the 'advertising will pay for everything' model would have learned their lesson, but clearly it's not the case.

sachinag 18y ago
There's a lot of hate for ad plays here on HN, and that's fine. (My startup is a commission-based model as well.) But let's be honest - there are plenty of great, useful apps supported by advertising and lead generation where the end-consumer pays not a penny: Google, Yelp, YouTube, Zillow, SideStep, YellowPages, TicketStumbler, and so forth. And plenty of media sites make money on ads: Ars Technica, Pitchfork Media, TechCrunch, Huffington Post, and so on. Let's not let the quest for ramen profitability distract us from looking long-term.
- smakz 18y ago
  I don't 'hate' companies that see advertising as their only revenue source, I just question both it's effectiveness in running a sustainable business and the hesitation that software developers working as founders have in charging real money for the quality services they are building. I don't count media companies, as I'm not sure of any ycombinator start ups focused on media (in the sense of being blogs, such as tech crunch or hpost, etc.), and those list of technology service-oriented companies you list, it's fairly questionable how great any of their business models really were/are. Everyone likes to point out Google and YouTube, but they forget google owns online advertising, period. And YouTube never really made any money. Don't get me wrong - it's great being an acquisition target and it's a great way to make some quick cash, but I think generally founders under-estimate the potential of their own company of being self sustaining and being very profitable with a paying customer base.
- cstejerean 18y ago
  Agreed, a website with low recurring expenses and high volume of quality traffic can probably survive just on advertising. The problem with advertising-only models IMHO is that ultimately survival of the company depends on other companies' advertising budgets instead of the value it's products provide to their end users. At the moment that situation does not seem ideal.
  - jshen 18y ago
    "The problem with advertising-only models IMHO is that ultimately survival of the company depends on other companies' advertising budgets instead of the value it's products provide to their end users. At the moment that situation does not seem ideal." Um, depending on users paying you is equally problematic. I imagine this moment isn't good for that either.

krschultz 18y ago

I use Zimbra at work (though we use the open-source version and don't pay a dime), and Gmail for personal use. They both have strengths and weaknesses, but I see Zimbra as the better professional solution. The search in Gmail is great, but no amount of tags can replace good old fashioned folders in Zimbra - especially if you subscribe to a bunch of FOSS project mailing lists - I just don't need to read it all that often but when I do I want it in one place. The calendaring system in Zimbra is useful for scheduling meetings as well.

neilc 18y ago
Strange -- when I've had to use Zimbra in the past, I've found it to be a very painful and frustrating experience. In comparison, GMail is an utter joy.
lacker 18y ago
But you can use Gmail tags exactly like folders, if that's what you want.
- mapleoin 18y ago
  labels
  - lacker 18y ago
    You can also use Gmail labels exactly like tags, if that's what you want. ;-)
enomar 18y ago
Can you explain why you can't get all your FOSS project emails "in one place" with labels? Can't you just create a filter in Gmail to tag them as "FOSS" and then auto archive them?

wastedbrains 18y ago

bad headline since it is only talking about paying users.

ryanwaggoner 18y ago
No, it's not.
- timf 18y ago
  It's unclear to me since it says Gmail gets 31.2M and Google Apps (which includes email) has another 10M. Also, I think the article may be wrong, it seems like Zimbra is only claiming 20M. Also note ajkirwin's point above, the measurements also seem to be conflated.

ajkirwin 18y ago

I hate the blending of terms in this article. It makes for a shitty read. Here's an example: "Zimbra actually has 31.4 million users in the United States, squeaking by the 31.2 million unique monthly visitors Gmail received in the US during the month of January." Take note. In the first, they put out 31.4 million, but that's a total user count and in the second, they put out 31.2 million, but that's unique monthly visitors. Two totally different statistics, but they act as if they are the same. GMail likely has a LOT more user accounts, plus, this doesn't account for people who get their email through SMTP/POP or IMAP.. Shame on you VentureBeat. Shame on you.

timf 18y ago
That's a good point. But where is the 40M figure even coming from or what possible event could have added 20 million new paying customers in the last six weeks (see my 20M comment). EDIT: CNET employee says he confirmed with Zimbra.
- rokhayakebe 18y ago
  I think they had a deal with Comcast.
  - timf 18y ago
    But that was in 2007.
tjogin 18y ago
I don't understand why magazines like VentureBeat and Wired love to talk up individual companies so much. All the damn time it sounds like this company is so incredibly amazing and all the time the numbers are inflated and skewed as much as they can possibly get away with. Is the honest truth not interesting enough? They're getting paid by them, right?
- quilby 18y ago
  They probably arent getting paid- there is just nothing too interesting going on in the startup world right now that they have to make trivial things into incredible stories.

timf 18y ago

Where is the actual source of this information? The Zimbra front page says 20M mailboxes (does not say how many are paid or not). There's no press release or RSS entry. The last number I see approved in some way by Zimbra is a 20M paid mailboxes article from January on http://www.zimbra.com/about/news.html http://www.zimbra.com/about/news.html What, they gained 20 million new paying customers in the last six weeks (with no big, new deal with another mail provider)? And where is that chart from in the venturebeat article? There are no sources for anything listed. I don't find this information credible.

timf 18y ago
And there's a new CNET entry that says 40M but... it references the venturebeat link as its source not any actual Zimbra statement. http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-10190071-16.html http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-10190071-16.html EDIT: The author of that says: "I talked with the company. They just haven't released the formal PR yet" I guess we will see later. Interested to know what the number actually means and how on Earth that amount of recent growth could be possible.
- deleted 18y ago
  [deleted]
- cellis 18y ago
  Facebook is adding 700k+ users a day. But they aren't facebook.
  - timf 18y ago
    And those users aren't paying anything.

c00p3r 18y ago

I never saw zimbra in any internet cafe in India or Nepal. It's all about facebook, (five screens of ten) gmail, and some hotmail (mostly japanese). Seems like they are living in their own reallity.

thepanister 18y ago

I used Zimbra for the first time, when I became Stanford student. When I logged in to my Stanford University email, I found out it's Zimbra... Zimbra is really great product, and yeah... more than 40 MM are using it; What is the problem with that?