Huddle ties up with VMware Zimbra in email and collaboration push

Online collaboration and social networking specialist Huddle has integrated its email indexing and archiving service with the VMware Zimbra collaboration platform.

The partnership allows Zimbra users to integrate email accounts with Huddle services from within the Zimbra interface. The companies will offer a connector tool which allows attachments and contact lists to be directly stored, archived and managed through the Huddle service.

The Huddle integration tool will be offered by VMware as part of the Zimbra Collaboration Suite package.

"We are excited to provide an easy way to integrate Huddle for the more than 66 million users of the VMware Zimbra email collaboration platform," said Andy Pflaum, senior director of end user computing at VMware.

"The seamless sharing of data such as files and address book contacts between Zimbra and Huddle exemplifies how Zimbra partners and customers can easily integrate with the Zimbra Collaboration Server via our open APIs and Zimlet framework."

Huddle is working to expand its reach into the email and messaging markets. The company believes that its services provide a more affordable web-based alternative to on-premise enterprise messaging and collaboration platforms such as Microsoft SharePoint and Exchange.

Additionally, the company claimed that the service offers a better way for businesses to track and search message archives and conversation history.

"With our email integrations, Huddle is providing a central hub for all enterprise cloud content and email," said Andy McLoughlin, Huddle co-founder and executive vice president of strategy.

"Although we recognise that the workforce isn't about to stop using email, it is vital that organisations have access to all enterprise information, including content residing in inboxes."