Zimbra vs. Google Apps: Utilizing MetaData
One of my favorite features of Zimbra is how it recognizes key information (metadata) within emails. GMail is great at picking out hyperlinks and email addresses, though the drawback is that this information is handled by whatever software application the link is setup to trigger. For instance, if I follow a link to an email address at a colleague’s office Outlook Express may open with the default sender being the user whose profile is being used to access my GMail account. This is not desirable as I do not wish to accidentally send emails as anyone other than myself. Zimbra, on the other hand, will simply open a new message within its own window, ready to send emails as me! Let’s take a closer look at this along with some other similar differences.
Here is the view of an email message I sent to myself and cc: a GMail account as displayed through the GMail account:
As you can see, the only information that was picked out of this email as special are my email address and the link to the 01.com homepage. What about the date tags? If you look to the right side of the screen GMail did pick out the June 16 meeting.
Though when I follow the link it pulls up another window where the information is filled in automatically by the surrounding text. This isn’t very handy at all.
In contrast here is the same message as viewed through the Zimbra interface:
We can see that there are three additional fields that have been selected as containing something special (yesterday, today and June 16). Hovering the pointer over these markers brings a new dimension to the interface that allows me to see what events are on my calendar for those days. This is great as I don’t need to flip back and forth between Calendar view and which email was it again that I was reading. Right, I never have to leave the message to respond that I’m free or busy.
Right clicking (ctrl click under) OSX opens a window where a new event can be added to the calendar.
A similar feature is available for adding/editing contact information:
As you can see there are other options available when handling email addresses in messages. It becomes simple to now create a new search, message, contact or create a filter to have all my email messages with thomas@01.com as a field handled appropriately.
Similarly, when right clicking a phone number you can search, add it to a contact or even place a call if you use the Skype service.
Tags: Google