Dan, who tried Zoho a couple of days back wrote:

However in using them [Zoho] I was very disappointed to find that each program had a *totally* different look-and-feel to them - they were, in effect, four entirely separate applications. They in no way felt part of a suite, and do not have any of the advantages outlined above.

Craig, who has been following Zoho’s progress, too wanted to know:

how serious is Zoho taking the UI experience of the users out there?

We do take in feedback from users on their experience with Zoho and are only too glad to hear what users have to say on the UI and how comfortable they feel while using Zoho.

That said, it is true that there is some lack of uniformity amongst the Zoho applications. Of all our applications, users might have noticed that Zoho Writer and Zoho Planner have similar UI. Zoho Projects, our latest offering too adopted the same. This is just so that they all look like a part of the same suite. The users can be rest assured that other services will soon follow the familiar Zoho Writer UI, as a part of hooking all the pieces of the Zoho suite.

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(1) We previously mentioned that Zoho Writer was recommended at the School Library Journal. Here’s a public application created using Zoho Creator that can be of great help to libraries and librarians.

(2) Craig, a Zoho Creator user explains how long it took him to create an application “from the scratch” - 10 minutes!

Popularity: 7% [?]

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Some people have expressed strong concerns on attaching documents along with e-mail. (Rather ironical that the most commonly used document type is considered the most dangerous as an e-mail attachment) Instead of sending a document as an attachment, with Zoho Writer, these methods can be alternatively used: 

(1) If the document is hosted at a website: If the document is in any of the formats - MS Word (Doc), Open Office (SXW), HTML, ODT, RTF, JPEG, GIF, PNG, TXT - then use the “Import URL” option and enter the URL.

(2) If the document is not hosted at a website: If you don’t have the software such as MS Word or Open Office installed, then this will be of help. Click on the “Import” button in Zoho Writer. As the “Import Document” box opens, you will find an e-mail address. Usually it will be {somecharacters}[at]docs[dot]zohowriter[dot]com. You can e-mail an attachment to your account using this address and the document will appear in the left pane.

These would mean that:

(1) You don’t need any software installed to read the documents (mainly MS Word and Open Office formats)

(2) Free from vulnerabilities. No virus threat. (Atleast not yet)

(3) You don’t require a crash course in file formats and the problems associated with creating them. We support most common formats and export to one of these formats.

(4) It is independent of the version of software you used for creating the document. So to speak, it is irrelevant if you used version x.x.01 or x.x.02, you can import the document. Although there are possibilities of formatting losses, the document can still be viewed.

Plus, all other advantages of using Zoho Writer such as collaboration can be availed.

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It is perfectly natural for all the Web savvy people to get carried away. And at times like those, when you feel like there needs to be a reality check, people are around. Dead 2.0 has been calling that the web is getting hyped for a while. Dead 2.0 also felt that Zoho Show, when it first released, was primitive to put it mildly. While it was a bit too early to ‘judge’, this recent post sheds light on bubble-bursts. While laying down survival-tips, the author (unintentionally, ofcourse) mentioned these points, which would serve as an addendum to these posts on why Zoho will survive:

Affect real people, not just bloggers.  If your entire business is about giving away plugins to bloggers, you aren’t a business, you are an open source or closed source software pool. That might be fun, but it has no legs.  If you can sell your widget, then you license technology.  Anything short of that and you better be something that is used not just existing for its own sake.  Finally, and most importantly on this issue, remember that bloggers aren’t really spending much money to blog, and will probably continue this trend.

If you are evolutionary, then there needs to be a big enough market to address with a “we’re a little better than them” vision.  Not only that, you need enough of a differentiator to get users to make a switch in existing patterns, which is not easy nor is it cheap.

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No, we haven’t released another product, nor do we promise a weekly product release. ;) While tracking back the blogs that mentioned Zoho, we came to know that there were a good number of teachers who use Zoho for various class-room related activities. Alan, a Zoho user compiled a post on how he uses Zoho tools for teaching or other tasks. As an addendum to that post, here are a few more ways in which teachers can use Zoho effectively as educational tools:

(1) Zoho Creator with its form-building capacities can be used to survey, or gather comments from people. A form can be embedded in your blog or you can provide a URL to the form. Here’s a sample.

(2) Zoho Planner can be used to plan lessons over a period of time, provide homework- reminders, assign a to-do list for students. You can then share it by e-mail or publish it as a public page.

(3) Zoho Chat can be used to encourage conversations and discussions.

(4) And with our recent Zoho Writer update, more than two students can simultaneously work on a homework or a project report. Or a teacher can work alongside the students and guide them. All this online! 

Coming soon: Team-Planner which will be an extension of Zoho Planner for teams working on projects. Stay tuned!

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Quite a few people have felt that Web 2.0 isn’t just about creating flashy (or Ajaxy) little widgets. Or just another mashup of Flickr and Yahoo Traffic or tracking your favourite satellite using Google Maps. Here’s one article which is about how Web 2.0 can be used in organizations to harness innovation:

But what if you’re working in a marketing department for a company as big as British Airways? Making yourself heard isn’t going to be easy. Getting things done is even more difficult.

While it is true that the article discusses the essence of Web 2.0, it is also true that the tools and applications that come under this new wave are just as useful. To start with, most companies have their internal network and can quite efficiently run these new tools. Collaboration, to start with, has become a standard feature of any web-based application. The power of collective intelligence can be put to very good use that way. Tools can also be used to digg or bury ideas The result is that:

They can learn to listen to their colleagues.

They can fast-track feedback, and streamline development cycles and processes.

Think CRM. Think RSS feeds. There are a host of other tools that can be put to good use, much more than merely toying around with them. (Nothing wrong with the toying part, of course, it’s fun-work) As the author says, if organizations were to do that, Web 2.0 is all about:

making feedback loops easy to use, and making it work simply and easily where it really counts – with your users / employees.

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Many users while accessing Zoho Writer from Firefox (mostly 1.5+) would have faced difficulty while using clipboard functions like Cut, Copy and Paste. While the keyboard shortcuts work fine, why exert stress on Ctrl+V while an alternative solution exists?
Firefox, for security reasons, disables Cut, Copy and Paste commands in the rich text editor. These settings can be changed:

(1) Visit your ‘profile folder’ and create a new file named ‘user.js’. Here’s how you can locate the profile folder for various Operating Systems.

(2) Add these four lines to the user.js file:

user_pref(”capability.policy.policynames”, “allowclipboard”);
user_pref(”capability.policy.allowclipboard.sites”, “http://www.zohowriter.com”);
user_pref(”capability.policy.allowclipboard.Clipboard.cutcopy”, “allAccess”);
user_pref(”capability.policy.allowclipboard.Clipboard.paste”, “allAccess”);

(3) Save the file and restart Firefox.

This should solve the issue. Else, after saving the file, feed a a little bit of magic potion i.e. do a system restart and Clipboard functions will work in Firefox.

Popularity: 8% [?]

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Isn’t it just great when someone asks all those questions you had in mind when using Zoho Sheet?

Here’s Vadivel who’d compiled a neat list of questions pertaining to Zoho Sheet.

Popularity: 7% [?]

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Atleast for the past couple of days, the Blogosphere was buzzing with a lot of sceptics of Office 2.0. More or less it amounted to the “what if” question. What is it that causes a hesitation on the part of most people to trust in an online Office application? Mostly it amounts to the following questions:

(1) Why should I use an online Office alternative when I have other Office packages that offer greater level of sophistication?

The classic answer to any “why” question is the George Bernard Shaw style, “why not!”. However, a more contemporary (and acceptable) answer will be, there are some compelling benefits of a web-based Office suite that a classic install and use Office package lacks.

(2) Which are?

Firstly, you need not worry about that pesky little virus that may do a clean sweep. Or an unreliable hard-disk that can crash when you expect it the least. Wasn’t it painful the last time it happened? Also, don’t you find attaching a file clumsy? Haven’t you ever felt the need of two heads georgraphically located at different places pouring over a research paper? How time-saving it will it be if the two of you could simultaenously edit the document!

(3) Yeah, but this requires a decent-speed internet connection, right? What if I suffer from connectivity problems?

Which brings to the next advantage: You can access your data from your neighbourhood cyber cafe should your Network card fail, or if you home-internet connection goes awry. You can access it from any corner of the World that has a decent speed internet connection, from anybody’s computer as long as it’s inside an insignificant blue-green planet called Earth. No one’s planning a lunar office, as of now
(4) Hey, am not ready to store my confidential documents in a third party server, you know.

Web-based e-mail is third party, right? Haven’t you sent or received e-mails? Do you think your e-mails are intercepted? Has any information you shared by e-mail leaked to an outside source? Most online office applications work pretty much like e-mail.
(5) What if one of the Office 2.0 service I trust goes out of business?

It never hurts to do a little bit of research before you “trust”, does it? In this case, lot of people have already tried, tested and reviewed several services. It’d be a lot safer for you to take a lead, or may be pick up a hint or two from there. Ismael Ghalimi’s blog, for instance, carries several blogposts on the topic. And for exclusive test-driving, Zoho services have a “demo login” which you can put to use before settling for documents that are important to you.

(6) I still haven’t got an answer for the “greater level of sophistication” part.

True, there isn’t a feature-to-feature web alternative for any Office application. But hey, the good news is that we are evolving; at a good pace too!

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Going back to Google Spreadsheet again (really, is it possible to not mention it at all? The noise seems to grow louder with each passing minute)

“… is it okay for Google to compete with many smaller companies, using its massive scale, integrating the applications into its platform - and not even bother to try and monetize those applications? And it is not even in its mission?”

The mission is (no, not World Peace) to index the World’s information. Following a few more links, I came across this comment in a 2.0 blog which is definitely worth pondering over:

“Less than 1% of spreadsheet users will switch from some other spreadsheet to Google’s. There are no smaller companies involved with this.”

And while talking about Google Spreadsheet, Jeremy Wright had written:

8. Users need to be trained to move online. First by extending existing office tools with online apps (ie: Outlook Web Access, etc). Then by providing fully online services.

The truth is there several Online Office applications around for a while. Zoho of course - Writer, Planner, Creator, Sheet, and there are several individual players as well - iRows, Editgrid, Thumbstacks and many, many others were alive and kicking even before the Writely acquisition. However lot of folks still aren’t ready for a Web Office suite, least of all from smaller companies. Robert Scoble says he’s very unlikely to give even a big company my corporate data, but far far far less likely to give a small company that stuff. He feels that smaller companies may go out of business that way and that is a risk not worth taking.

Short answer: Your data will be a lot safer in our servers. Long answer: Heck, your data will be a lot safer in our servers. Don’t we all like to leave the domestic responsibilities to somebody else? Same works here.

This blogpost offers a better explanation:

“I hate the whole “backup my PST/OST, install Office, re-boot, download the 400 service packs / urgent security upgrades, re-boot, where did I backup my OST/PST (and what the hell is the difference between the two again?)” rollercoaster. It shouldn’t take a day out of my life to re-build my PC. I can see the day rapidly approaching when I install an OS, a browser, and then get back to work. The thing I love most about Gmail is that my data is safe. I can’t screw it up. I can’t accidentally format a hard drive and lose it.”

Convincing?

Oh, and on a related note, thanks (once again) to Zoli for the visual comparison on ZohoSheet and Google Spreadsheet.

Popularity: 3% [?]

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