Zoho Business Apps - The Smart Office 2.0 Solution

Posted by Rene LeMerle in September 11th, 2007

You’ll be forgiven for thinking that Google Apps and Microsoft/Windows Live Office are the driving force behind the Office 2.0 revolution given the volume of buzz about the tools they’ve released or repackaged. But its offerings like Zoho Business Suite that are helping to set the pace.

Zoho has been quietly (relatively) developing an extensive range of online business productivity solutions, which offer people an alternative to high priced computer bound software like Microsoft Office. The majority of applications are available for free from www.zoho.com, with a new Pro offering due for release for a small premium (currently in private beta).

Zoho offers 12 applications and 4 utilities which cover the needs of most personal users and core business applications. The suite includes these core productivity applications:

Zoho Writer - word processor
Zoho Sheet - spreadsheet application
Zoho Show - presentation solution
Zoho Meeting - web conferencing
Zoho Notebook - online note taking
Zoho Planner - personal and business organizer

The business edition of the service will be available for US$40 per user per year and will include access to exclusive applications like Zoho CRM and have none of the limitations which apply to the Zoho Personal offering.

There are also a range of plug-ins that help users integrate with other applications (i.e. MS Office), work offline and increase the usability of the suite with APIs and widget development capabilities. With a strong development history and what seems like solid plans for the future (which include an education version of the productivity suite), they’re worth giving the “once over”.

While Zoho doesn’t carry the hefty budgets of their primary competitors such as Google and Microsoft, their dedication to collaborative and easy to use online business applications has already earned them over 300,000 users. This is a company focused on a single core business model, rather than trying to be a jack of every trade.

The applications come minus some of the bells and whistles we’ve become accustomed to in our offline business software, but as the push towards online productivity gains momentum; a strong, stable and functional range of programs such as these will become essential for the modern business operator.

For a preview of its capabilities - check out their recent presentation at Demo 2007