The past few days have brought much recognition for Zoho. The Zoho single sign-on started it all. Techcrunch's coverage about Zoho Virtual Office's Private Beta launch amplified it much further. We beat the Google Docs & Spreadsheets launch news by a whisker. And bloggers/analysts invariably quoted Zoho wherever Google was mentioned. All this was happening while the first Office 2.0 Conference was being held by Ismael Ghalimi.
As one who follows Zoho news around the blogosphere and the net, some of the coverage on Zoho in the past few days (in no particular order) here :
Zoho has a much more robust set of office tools with 13+ online tools available. The tools available on Zoho are much more integrated than Google’s and include a product called Zoho Virtual Office. Zoho Virtual office provides web based email, web documents and sharing, calendar, tasks and reporting, contacts, notes, bookmarks, instant Messaging, groupspace, wireless handheld access, and multi language support all wrapped into one online interface. even if we start comparing individual tools with other comtemporaries like a Zoho writer with writely, Zoho writer still scores high in features such as support for importing documents by email, a finer document search, template support and more.
- from India 2.0 Part 6 by Rajiv Dingra at WATblog
Zoho is at best, Office Lite, giving you only the basic features of a full-blown desktop productivity suite. For a lot of people who are on a tight budget, however, that may be enough. And certainly, if you’re on the road without your laptop, Zoho is a good way to bring your work with you, anywhere you’ve got an Internet connection. Like in an Internet café in Olongapo City, where the mardi gras beckons.
- Online office suite by Chin Wong
Google has merged its separate Writely and spreadsheets web applications into Google Docs & Spreadsheets. The new service will further Google’s strength as an online office suite, currently competing with Zoho.
- Google Releases “Docs & Spreadsheets†by Paul Stamatiou
For those that haven’t experienced the products that Zoho offers then I think you will find some of them to be quite amazing compared to their competitors like Google.
Zoho’s products have been widely reviewed. Techcrunch, perhaps the most widely read web 2.0 blog, has reviewed it several times. Zoho Virtual Office, which is what was announced, is a bundle of existing Zoho products with a single sign-on. As you can see from the reviews, Zoho is generally considered one of the top contenders in the online office productivity race. The competition is tough and the market is crowded (at one time I counted 13 online spreadsheet offerings). And not just with startups. Zoho is challenging the hegemony of Microsoft Office that dominates this space. And let’s not forget Google which has perhaps the best tech talent in the world today and knows what is at stake here. So this is David versus two Goliaths. So far David’s holding his own.
I have tried a couple of Zoho products. The spreadsheet works well and will probably work for most people who don’t do complex things with Excel, like pivot tables. I also tried out their CRM product, and will be doing a more detailed evaluation of how it fits our needs at Gridstone. Currently we use SugarCRM. Zoho’s functionality seems richer at first glance. The one peeve I have with Zoho is that they give very little information, even where information can help them sell.
- Indian startups making a mark by Basab Pradhan
Zoho is innovating even faster. They have launched a complete suite of online Office applications that are more sophisticated and feature-rich that competing Google products. And Zoho Office suite includes tools for presentation, project management and a visual database, which are still missing in Google Office.
- Who Will Win The Online Office Race ? Google, Zoho or Microsoft by Amit Agarwal
Spin doctors on sales teams are out, and authentic communication is in. This is why many companies do not have a sales button on their web site, but they do have a blog. The blog is a way of getting out information in an authentic, efficient way, which is the best path to acceptance.
- The sales pitch is dead. Here's a new way to sell by Penelope Trunk
A company called Zoho has an application with the product name "Virtual Office", but is naming its new online version "ZohoX". That's pretty unimaginative, actually, compared to the names of their other productivity applications: Show (think PowerPoint), Sheet (Excel) and Writer (Word).
- Product Naming: Anything to Avoid "Office" by William Lozito
If the Web 2.0 office suite and the Office 2.0 movement actually take root (propelled, in part, by Google's efforts), Zoho could become an appealing target.
- Web M&A: Who's Next? by Mark Evans
... the Zoho suite of online productivity apps now only needs on[e] sign-in per application. Before, if I used Writer, and then needed to go into Sheet, I would have to log in twice. No more. Good stuff.
- Google Docs, and Zoho by David Briggs
At the basic level, Writely is basically a uniquely interfaced AJAX editor that writes HTML documents on the fly. Although it is easy to use, it lacks many of the features already integrated into its competitors. Specifically, check out Zohowriter, a solid WP with the ability to interface any number of blogging systems.
- Blogging Interfaces by Tim
What are your thoughts on Zoho?
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