Emerging from a Highly Praised Private Beta, Zoho Notebook is a One-Stop Destination for Accessing and Sharing Content - Creation, Aggregation and Collaboration
INTEROP LAS VEGAS - May 22, 2007 - Helping people work online, Zoho, a leading provider of Web-based applications for collaborative business, today announced general availability of Zoho Notebook, a unique online application for creating, aggregating, and collaborating on multiple types of content. As Zoho Notebook transitions from private beta to public beta, Zoho reaffirms its commitment to Office 2.0 leadership by bringing one-of-a-kind applications to its customers.
"Zoho Notebook makes it clear that Zoho isn't a me-too company," said
Raju Vegesna, Zoho evangelist.
"Many online tools are available for content creation, aggregation, and collaboration – including several of ours. However, Zoho Notebook is the only application that brings all three of these functions together along with other Zoho applications like Zoho Writer, Zoho Sheet, Zoho Meeting, and Zoho Chat. This announcement is just another step in our mission to improve online collaboration for all of our customers."
Inside Zoho Notebook
Inspired by the traditional spiral-bound notebook, Zoho Notebook serves as a one-stop destination for accessing and sharing content that is often scattered across the desktop, email, applications, Web sites, and elsewhere. With Zoho Notebook, users can create and collect multimedia content from multiple sources or applications. Taking advantage of Zoho Notebook's fine-grained controls for collaboration, users can then share content with others.
Content creation. Users can add text, images, audio, video, and more. The content can be placed anywhere on a Zoho Notebook page. Images can be pulled from a local machine or a URL. Audio can be added by pointing to an audio file or recording directly from Notebook. Users can import video from external sources, such as YouTube, or they can record video from a webcam into Notebook. Zoho Notebook can also be used as a whiteboard application.
Content aggregation. Users can aggregate content from multiple sources or applications, including Web pages, RSS feeds, and files. Zoho Notebook pages can include embedded Zoho Show presentations, Zoho Sheet spreadsheets, Zoho Writer documents, as well as third-party applications. Notebook's plug-in for Firefox Browser simplifies clipping content from the Web.
Online collaboration. Users can share an entire Notebook, a single page, or a lone object, allowing read/write or read-only access to other users, who can only see and/or edit the content that has been shared to them. Support for real-time collaborative editing lets multiple people work on the same page at the same time, with content changes immediately reflected to all users. Zoho Notebook also provides versioning at the Notebook, page, and object level. Skype and Zoho Chat integration allows for instant chat and IP telephony with other online users directly from Zoho Notebook.
Private Beta Praise
Customers, bloggers, press, and other industry watchers familiar with the alpha and beta versions of Zoho Notebook have given kudos to the application.
"…you can see the promise of an online and collaborative Notebook application, especially one that handles multiple types of content. Game on Google, not to mention Microsoft!"
Richard MacManus, Read/Write Web, www.readwriteweb.com
"This goes way beyond what Google Notebook offers, which is really just a content clipping service for websites. A good analogy to Zoho Notebook is Microsoft OneNote, a desktop application. But with sharing and versioning."
Nick Gonzalez, TECHCrunch, www.techcrunch.com
"Zoho Notebook, which at first glance may make you think of Microsoft's OneNote application, but upon closer examination offers much more. ...Working with the Notebook seems to be easier than trying to draw things in a standard e-mail client and trying to collaborate with others through a messaging system."
Keith Shaw, Network World, www.infoworld.com
"One of the most impressive things I saw here at the DEMO conference (which wrapped up this evening) is a Web service that's still in a private alpha version. As such, it has every right to be rough around the edges, and it is–but it's also, in some important respects, among the most sophisticated Web-applications I've seen. It's Zoho Notebook–the latest in an every-expanding array of productivity tools from the folks at Zoho–and while it's reminiscent of Microsoft's OneNote note-taking application, I've never seen anything like it on the Web. (Google Notebook has a similar name and vaguely similar concept, but it's not in the same league when it comes to features, slickness, and general ambition.)"
Harry McCracken, PC World, blogs.pcworld.com
"The permissions can be granted on a per user basis which is, as far as I know, unprecedented for an application like this."
Marc Orchant, ZDNet, blogs.zdnet.com
Taking Note of Zoho
Zoho Notebook is just the latest online collaborative application from the company that has been averaging one new Office 2.0 application every month for over a year. Zoho Notebook rounds out a suite that includes Zoho Writer, Zoho Sheet, Zoho Show, Zoho Projects, Zoho Wiki, Zoho Creator, and more. Zoho's recent "100 Best Products of 2007 Award" from PC World (see article at: www.pcworld.com) affirms the company's commitment to providing its customers with the best, most comprehensive Office 2.0 suite.
As Ismael Ghalimi, from IT|Redux, said, "Zoho is running faster than anybody else in developing the core technologies that are required for delivering an integrated Office 2.0 experience. You can think of it as the Office 2.0 equivalent of DCOM and OLE. For Microsoft, it took about ten years to get a first version running. For Zoho, it took less than one. Granted, we do not have the same level of integration yet, but it's coming fast. Really fast…"
At Interop Las Vegas, attendees can check out Zoho Notebook along with the rest of the Zoho Office Suite at the AdventNet Booth # 761.
Related Links:
Zoho Notebook (and screen shots)
notebook.zoho.com
Zoho Notebook video demonstration
www.youtube.com
About Zoho and AdventNet
Zoho is creating the most comprehensive suite of affordable, online productivity tools for today's knowledge workers. Nearly 120 developers work on the Zoho suite, often implementing new features just days after customers request them and responding to customer queries within minutes of their posting. To date, Zoho has launched 15 different applications and more are in the works. For more information on Zoho, please visit www.zoho.com.
Zoho is a division of AdventNet, in business since 1996 providing innovative software tools and serving more than 10,000 customers worldwide. For more information on AdventNet, please visit www.zohocorp.com.
Media Contact:
PR Team
pr@zohocorp.com