In an article about Microsoft's announcement-of-an-announcement regarding its web-based Office offering, Anita Hamilton writes about Zoho and quotes our Raju Vegesna. Excerpts :

"I think it's about time the Office suite is free," says Zoho's tech evangelist Raju Vegesna. "We paid $500 for an Office suite when the price of the hardware was $5,000. Now the price of the hardware has come down to $500, and it doesn't really make any sense for a piece of software to cost $500."

For most users, however, free Web apps are really all you need. And they're getting better all the time. Zoho has spreadsheet, word-processing, presentation and organizing programs, and lets you work both online and off; it even has an iPhone app.

Before you pay even the lowest price for Microsoft Office, give Zoho or Google Docs a try. They aren't confusing, and they won't make you feel stupid. To make absolutely sure, I became my own guinea pig. I typed this story in Zoho Writer, even though I had never even tried it until this week.

Thanks to Anita & TIME.