Zimbra has rolled out a new version of its cloud-friendly groupware collaboration software. Titled Zimbra Community 8.0, the release introduces a free edition of the platform, which the company is offering to businesses and individuals alongside the standard and professional editions it traditionally provided.

With features that include email, calendaring, file sharing, activity streams, social communities and more, Zimbra is designed as a comprehensive collaboration platform for allowing users to work together locally or through the cloud. Zimbra counts more than 5,000 customers, with NTT Communications, Comcast, Dell, Investec, Rackspace (RAX), Red Hat (RHT), Mozilla, H&R Block and Vodafone among them, and ranks itself as the world's third largest collaboration provider.

The biggest change in Zimbra's latest software release is the diversification of its software offerings through the introduction of a new free edition of the platform. That change appears aimed at making the software more popular with smaller organizations that are reluctant to invest in the paid versions. "With the release of Zimbra Community Free Edition, organizations of all sizes can now benefit from our team’s experience of powering more than 3,000 communities globally to improve real-time employee and customer collaboration, support and engagement," said Rob Howard, chief technology officer at Zimbra.

Zimbra Community 8.0 also introduces better support for mobile devices. Full-featured mobile apps for Android and iOS are now available, and the Zimbra interface has been revamped to auto-scale for different screen sizes, the company said.

Last but not least, the new version features context-aware searching, which "creates a more engaging experience for customers and employees, and quickly connects people to the content that is most critical to decision-making," according to Zimbra.

Each of the three editions of the Zimbra platform that the company now offers are available now from zimbra.com.