Real estate firm, ZipRealty, uses Zimbra for all its agents

Back in 2005, Joe Trifoglio, CIO of ZipRealty, needed a new email system for his 2,500 real estate agents spread out across 14 major metropolitan areas. His homegrown, open-source e-mail client worked well, but he needed something that would work on top of his custom built CRM system, known internally as ZAP, the Zip Agent Platform.

Prior to shopping for a new messaging system, Trifoglio’s real-estate agents toggled between their e-mail and CRM app, and had to manually input a lot of information (such as appointments) between the two.

There were a variety of Web-based e-mail clients for Trifoglio to choose from, including Google and its Google Apps. But because Zip Realty built its CRM system completely from scratch and on Java and open source components, Trifoglio needed a messaging system built on similar principles. He picked the open-source, Yahoo-owned Zimbra, an e-mail, calendar and chat (instant messaging) client.

CRM: Real estate firm uses Zimbra for all its agents
by C.g. Lynch | CIO