OIT chooses new webmail service

Since the launch of Gmail in 2004, Google, Microsoft and Yahoo have been one-upping each other to introduce new features to their webmail systems. As a result, Hotmail, Yahoo! Mail and Gmail have all become more user-friendly, gained storage space and made previously-costly features free. With the abundance of exciting new features in these free options, Tech's SPECTRUM webmail client, which has not been updated for a number of years, has fallen far behind the times.

Fortunately for the technologically frustrate student, desperate to escape the text ads of Gmail without losing the contacts, linked email conversations or calendar options that the more advanced webmail systems currently provide, the Office of Information Technology (OIT) plans on rolling out a new webmail system next spring.

The new webmail system that has been purchased is called Zimbra, and is already in use at various other schools such as The Ohio State University and the University of California, Los Angeles.

Zimbra will be released for optional use at Tech in early Spring 2008 to replace the current SPECTRUM system. Graduating seniors who do not wish to adapt to a new system need not worry, though; SPECTRUM will still be available through summer 2008.

The system is a much needed upgrade from the current webmail services provided by Tech. "SPECTRUM is now approaching five years old, so it is no longer as feature-rich as our users wanted. They wanted things that were more than just email, and it was time to refresh the hardware anyway to increase the performance," said Pam Buffington, OIT research scientist and Email Calendar and Contacts project manager.

OIT will not be doing any code customizations for the system, but will instead be relying on "zimlets," application add-ins that tie in multiple technologies.

The new system will have an integrated calendar and contact management. The Zimbra product demo highlights the ability of the system to integrate with other products, such as Skype or Yahoo! Maps, through AJAX-driven mouseover features that are able to present information both from other Zimbra components and from the third party services without refreshing the original page.

For example, Zimbra has the ability to recognize both explicit dates, such as Oct. 3, and implied dates, such as tomorrow. Upon hovering over one of these dates, Zimbra pops up a link to a user's calendar, showing other appointments happening the same day and giving the option of adding an event to one's schedule without having to close, minimize, or toggle away from the original conversation window.

"From one application you can schedule meetings, have the same contacts across multiple computers and have those all interact together." Zimbra has the ability for campus organizations to publish calendars internally to members at Tech, as well as external to Tech, which is close to the Student Government Association goals of creating a campus-wide calendar," Buffington said.

In fact, an individual Zimbra calendar can be linked to multiple other individual calendars as well as organizational calendars. This allows users to not only track their own schedules, but to easily verify those of their friends or group members for meeting scheduling.

The Email Calendar and Contacts program worked with the College of Engineering as well as SGA to provide early feedback on the infrastructure.

"We also had surveys across several sets of users, largely focusing on what changes they would like to see in the webmail infrastructure. We provided the maximum feature set for students, so that we didn't limit them in how they read their mail or what they used to read their mail," Buffington said.

According to the vendor's information, Zimbra will be compatible with email systems like Outlook, Thunderbird and other major messaging clients. It also comes with integrated spam filtering and anti-virus protection.

Students will also be able to take greater advantage of devices such as Blackberry phones. "This system will also provide additional mobility. It can synch your email and calendar features with many of the phones and mobile devices out today," Buffington said.

In addition to all of the major user interface enhancements expected from the new system, there are also plans to integrate Zimbra with the soon-to-be updated BuzzPort web portal.

"We are hoping to integrate the two as much as possible, even though they are [from] two different vendors. Both of the new systems are versatile enough that we believe they can be synced easily. We expect students to be happy with the expanded features," Buffington said.