Bill Ives at 'The AppGap' has a nice post on all things Zoho (including our blogs!) titled 'Zoho: A Suite of Many Online Apps for Small to Midsize Business'. From his post,
These apps are all designed to take advantage of the web with good collaborative features. You do not have to send emails with attachments to provide access to documents. You always see the latest version online and teams can make and see changes real time. Chat is integrated into all the apps so teams can discuss these changes.
Then there is the question of offline access, something blogs have not addressed as I write this post in Word at the airport, being too cheap for the $9.95 they want for wifi. Zoho is now offering offline apps, beginning with Zoho Writer. Later I edit it on the plane, hoping I get wifi in my hotel room. They built their offline capability with open source code from Google Gears. When you go back online, data is synchronized. You have the option to merge data or make your version the latest. This will require some team coordination on version control but is a good feature for business adoption.
Rob Bushway at GottaBeMobile is in awe with Zoho Notebook. The Library & Information Services Newsletter of DePauw University in its latest issue carries an article on Zoho in its Emerging Technologies section. From the article, "Zoho.com - Online Collaborative ‘Office’ Suite",
Zoho writer and presentation allow users to import documents from Microsoft Word or PowerPoint to be edited or shared, and a plug-in is available to work with Excel as well.Like the Microsoft Office suite, all of Zoho’s tools integrate and work better together. Unlike Office, Zoho allows multiple users to share and edit documents simultaneously from any computer with Internet access.
In addition to integrating with each other, all Zoho applications can be integrated with Facebook, an increasingly helpful feature for college students, faculty and staff.
Thanks to Bill, Rob and DePauw University!
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