We have been quite happy with the response thus far to the name Zimbra. Hopefully, Zimbra is growing on you the same way it’s been growing on us.
The name Zimbra comes to us from Talking Heads’ (our choice for best band of the 80s) tune “I Zimbra“, which can be found on Fear of Music (which ought, by the way, to be in your collection). Zimbra alone, of the thousands of names that we considered, came out of a desperate late night search through the CD collection to head off alternative names like HobNob, AquaFront, and Oompa Zing. (We’re use failed company names for our conference rooms, and there’s no possibility of our ever running out.)
Zimbra came to the Heads via Dadaism, which Wikipedia defines in part as a “protest against an oppressive intellectual rigidity in both art and everyday society.” Hugo Ball, a Dadaistic poet, wrote a nonsensical poem—Gadji beri bimba—just for the sound of it, and then Talking Heads made poem into song.
Zimbra apparently also means “Juniper” in Portuguese, but the term doesn’t seem to be in very common use. (At least, my Brazilian friends hadn’t heard of it.)
But we figured all that stuff out after the fact. The reality is that we just like the sound of Zimbra, and admittedly several of us still love the Heads.
I think to date naming may have been the single hardest thing the company formerly known as Liquid Systems has had to get done. Naming is hard, because
• It’s one thing nearly every employee and perspective community member cares passionately about;
• You have to endeavor to avoid collisions with many thousands of commercial software products (since every man or woman and his/her dog can have a commercial software product);
• You also have to endeavor to avoid collisions with 100,000+ open source projects;
• You need something that anyone can easily spell once they’ve heard it (I learned this lesson the hard way—“Tengah” was at one time the name for the WebLogic Server); and
• Of course, you need to be able to get the URL and trademark (both of which would have been challenging if we’d tried to keep the name Liquid).
Looking forward, however, there’s one part of naming that we still haven’t sorted: What do we call the members of the greater Zimbra community?
• Zimbrainians
• Zimbracans
• Zimbradors
• Zimbrashers
Your vote or additional contributions would be most welcome on this blog thread.
on September 12th, 2005 at 6:50 pm
Conversations on the Web, Sep 13
Interesting conversations going on around the place: Could We Have Real Collaboration, Please? Rui laments the lack of real “collaborative” capabilities available in today’s product offerings, and asks some questions about computer-supported cooperativ…
on September 13th, 2005 at 12:05 pm
Zimbrans - shorter and sweeter
Cool product - looks delicious to me. Bits of it remind me of Bloomba - I did enjoy that! Only downside for all of these webservices is that if you are on a sometimes intermitent broadband connection like I am then who needs email and a calendar that you cannot get at
Good luck with ongoing development - will be watching with interest.
keith
on September 13th, 2005 at 1:56 pm
Awsome, zimbra remind’s me of Atmail.nl
preety expensive and compiled one..
Thx for sharing your efforts.. I would like to use it for commercial purpose… and would to have some help regarding its integration with - Cpanel so that i can offer to various clients.
best of luck zimbra
on September 15th, 2005 at 12:22 pm
You should call the members of the Zimbra community Zimbrans. =)
on September 15th, 2005 at 6:13 pm
“Zimbrats”?
on September 19th, 2005 at 5:40 pm
How about those whacky Zimbrians?
on September 26th, 2005 at 9:12 pm
eWeek Touts Exchange Alternative
on September 28th, 2005 at 11:43 pm
I personally like “Zimbranians” of the 4 choices. But why not just “Zimbras”?
on September 29th, 2005 at 6:37 am
Hah. Zimbra. Love it.
Here are a few possible name extensions:
Employees:
Zimbraniacs
Zimbroids (but a shot can clear that up)
Eh. I like other peoples’ ones better.
Developer Community Members:
Zimbers
Icon sets for skinning Zimbra:
Zimbricons
Office poetry rhyme scheme:
Zimbric pentameter
Office burp:
Zimbraaaaaap~!
Office sneeze response:
GeZimbra
Snoop Dogg nomenclature and usage:
Zimbrizzle fo’ yo’ bizzle
User Manual:
Zimbrapedia
Philosophical book:
Zimbra and the Art of Email Maintenance
Tag line:
Keep it Zimbra, Ztoopid.
Man. This came out wayyy to smurfy.
/me runs away
on October 10th, 2005 at 7:38 am
Zimbraists
on October 10th, 2005 at 11:19 am
I vote for Zimbrat, resounding the spirit of Dadaism quoted, opposing rigidity and making all connection with letters, words, concepts, reality-as-experienced and maybe thinking that there might be “something out there” - dissolve.
I am a Zimbrat, if Zimbra gets to be a disruptive innovation, fuelling Web 3.0 “connected anywhere, getting connected *anywhere* - the HotWorld - beyond the Hype with Hope”, with a hosted server and a thin 3G/WiMAX client and a Phat Thick 1TB server - hosted.
I want to see Mission Impossible 4.0 from the Top of Kilimanjaro. From my Virtual TiVo. Before 2010.
And maybe zipping a Gin and Tonic. With Juniper, right?
Will you get it for me?
Peace,
Anders
–
My ABC;
About: http://www.andersabrahamsson.info
Blog: blog.sustainopreneurship.biz*
Case study: http://www.ignitionwear.com
*sustainopreneurship = sustainability innovation and entrepreneurship
on November 13th, 2008 at 2:15 pm
Just installing Zimbra now … I think I would like to be called a Zimbralite or a Zimbrator lol