<![CDATA[Gawker: valleywag, zimbra]]> http://tags.gawker.com/assets/base/img/thumbs140x140/gawker.com.png <![CDATA[Gawker: valleywag, zimbra]]> http://gawker.com/tag/valleywag/zimbra http://gawker.com/tag/valleywag/zimbra <![CDATA[A Yahoo's greener-than-thou custom car]]> After Yahoo bought email startup Zimbra for $350 million, where did the money go? Cofounder and CEO Satish Dharmaraj put at least some of it down on a customized Toyota Prius, now on display at the SEMA auto show in Las Vegas. The yellow-and-orange car was so outrageously over the top it made even the heartless carbloggers at Jalopnik weep.

The Prius features an extended battery for all-electric operation — how green! (Unless you count the coal which more than likely generated most of that electricity.) MyRide says that Dharmaraj's outré choice of scissor-wing doors means "the Lamborghini-door trend is officially over." (Photo by MyRide)

]]> http://gawker.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5077980&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[Why Yahoo really bought Zimbra]]> I've been scratching my head trying to figure out why Yahoo shelled out $350 million — $350 million! — to buy Zimbra, a mostly unremarkable, if well-reviewed, email-software startup. True, Zimbra's Web-based email has found a smallish customer base of Internet service providers, universities, and startups — a customer base which has been turning to Google's Gmail. By buying Zimbra, Yahoo might hope to protect its still-popular Yahoo Mail, and perhaps expand it to new markets. But that hardly seems like enough to justify the hefty purchase price. And then it hit me — this has nothing to do with email. Not really. Yahoo's Zimbra purchase is part of Sue Decker's ongoing upgrade of the troubled company's management.

While Kara Swisher got the scoop on the story, posting her item an hour before TechCrunch's Michael Arrington's so-called exclusive, both she and Arrington missed this angle. Zimbra's management team is extremely high-powered for a startup its size, and heavily weighted in the very tech expertise that Yahoo lacks in its battle against Google.

My bet: Zimbra president and CTO Scott Dietzen fills Yahoo's currently empty CTO slot, while Zimbra CEO Satish Dharmaraj might squeeze out the widely disliked Marco Boerries, who currently oversees Yahoo's mobile efforts. Any other Yahoos who you think might have to make way for a Zimbran? Let me know.

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