Comments on: Online Collaboration Suites and Why I Don't Get Zoho http://blog.auinteractive.com/online-collaboration-suites-and-why-i-dont-get-zoho AU Interactive - Internet Marketing Tips and Observations Thu, 17 Feb 2011 00:41:03 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 By: Floogy http://blog.auinteractive.com/online-collaboration-suites-and-why-i-dont-get-zoho#comment-783 Floogy Mon, 26 Jan 2009 01:28:23 +0000 http://blog.auinteractive.com/online-collaboration-suites-and-why-i-dont-get-zoho#comment-783 I feel every single word of this post, down to the last paragraph and sentence. Also decided to move to Basecamp just a few hours ago. Also sick of feeding the Google cookie monster. Their latest purchases make me feel a little ill, not to mention driving around these parts in that street view car. Talk about a conglomerate of bought companies, though. People forget it's not really Google, it's just Keyhole + Writely + Blogger ++... combined with a savvy and spendy legal team to handle assimilation. Zoho needs a new interface design team and they could take a massive market share (hint to 3 commenters here: just because people have worked there for a while doesn't make them good for you; I'm sure your programmers must be good to have churned out so much, but the interface is downright unfriendly for a newcomer; no matter what you say we will feel that way until it changes). Basecamp won me back after years out the fold with this newsletter only last night: http://37assets.s3.amazonaws.com/newsletters/basecamp/2009-01-21.html -- more specifically, what it linked to at http://basecamphq.com/extras since I already use FreshBooks and some of the other apps look bitchin'. I feel every single word of this post, down to the last paragraph and sentence. Also decided to move to Basecamp just a few hours ago. Also sick of feeding the Google cookie monster. Their latest purchases make me feel a little ill, not to mention driving around these parts in that street view car. Talk about a conglomerate of bought companies, though. People forget it’s not really Google, it’s just Keyhole + Writely + Blogger ++… combined with a savvy and spendy legal team to handle assimilation.

Zoho needs a new interface design team and they could take a massive market share (hint to 3 commenters here: just because people have worked there for a while doesn’t make them good for you; I’m sure your programmers must be good to have churned out so much, but the interface is downright unfriendly for a newcomer; no matter what you say we will feel that way until it changes).

Basecamp won me back after years out the fold with this newsletter only last night: http://37assets.s3.amazonaws.com/newsletters/basecamp/2009-01-21.html — more specifically, what it linked to at http://basecamphq.com/extras since I already use FreshBooks and some of the other apps look bitchin’.

]]> By: Mani http://blog.auinteractive.com/online-collaboration-suites-and-why-i-dont-get-zoho#comment-781 Mani Mon, 12 Mar 2007 03:35:11 +0000 http://blog.auinteractive.com/online-collaboration-suites-and-why-i-dont-get-zoho#comment-781 Thanks for writing about this. I think the name, Virtual office, caused the confusion. Currently Virtual office is a Messaging & Collaboration software with major focus on Email, Calendering & Documents. Other services are not fully integrated inside Virtual office. We are working on it & you will see them integrated soon. For your requirements, please look at Zoho Projects ( www.zohoprojects.com ). Thanks for writing about this. I think the name, Virtual office, caused the confusion. Currently Virtual office is a Messaging & Collaboration software with major focus on Email, Calendering & Documents. Other services are not fully integrated inside Virtual office. We are working on it & you will see them integrated soon.

For your requirements, please look at Zoho Projects ( http://www.zohoprojects.com ).

]]> By: Sridhar Vembu http://blog.auinteractive.com/online-collaboration-suites-and-why-i-dont-get-zoho#comment-782 Sridhar Vembu Mon, 12 Mar 2007 02:12:53 +0000 http://blog.auinteractive.com/online-collaboration-suites-and-why-i-dont-get-zoho#comment-782 Markus, Thank you for taking the time to evaluate Zoho, and I am sorry to let you down. Let me try to provide some explanation. Our first goal in Zoho is to provide discrete, individual applications that are powerful in and of themselves. As an example, Zoho Writer aims to be a full featured word processor, Zoho Sheet, a powerful spreadsheet, Zoho Projects an online project management application and so on. We have enabled collabaratioin within each application, but other than single sign-on across (most) Zoho applications, collaboration across applications is still very much work in progress. We expect to make some announcements in that respect soon. The reason we have taken this approach is to take a discrete problem (say, online presentation) and solve it well. This way, a user who needs an online presentation tool can use Zoho Show, and get real value out of it, and not have to worry about mastering all the other stuff there. We want very much a best-of-breed approach to it, rather than an all-or-nothing deal. Your need is kind of orthogoal to it: you are looking for a "team portal" where everything is in one place. Zoho Projects would partially meet that need, but to be honest, it is not well integrated with other Zoho applications (that integration is coming soon). You can compare Zoho Projects against Basecamp and decide for yourself how we stack up. Finally, I assure you that we are constantly improving the individual Zoho applications, making them more consistent in terms of user experience, and working on presenting a unified view. Once again, thank you for taking the time. Regards, Sridhar Vembu Markus,
Thank you for taking the time to evaluate Zoho, and I am sorry to let you down. Let me try to provide some explanation. Our first goal in Zoho is to provide discrete, individual applications that are powerful in and of themselves. As an example, Zoho Writer aims to be a full featured word processor, Zoho Sheet, a powerful spreadsheet, Zoho Projects an online project management application and so on. We have enabled collabaratioin within each application, but other than single sign-on across (most) Zoho applications, collaboration across applications is still very much work in progress. We expect to make some announcements in that respect soon.

The reason we have taken this approach is to take a discrete problem (say, online presentation) and solve it well. This way, a user who needs an online presentation tool can use Zoho Show, and get real value out of it, and not have to worry about mastering all the other stuff there. We want very much a best-of-breed approach to it, rather than an all-or-nothing deal.

Your need is kind of orthogoal to it: you are looking for a “team portal” where everything is in one place. Zoho Projects would partially meet that need, but to be honest, it is not well integrated with other Zoho applications (that integration is coming soon). You can compare Zoho Projects against Basecamp and decide for yourself how we stack up.

Finally, I assure you that we are constantly improving the individual Zoho applications, making them more consistent in terms of user experience, and working on presenting a unified view.

Once again, thank you for taking the time.

Regards,
Sridhar Vembu

]]> By: Nathanael http://blog.auinteractive.com/online-collaboration-suites-and-why-i-dont-get-zoho#comment-780 Nathanael Sun, 11 Mar 2007 22:10:09 +0000 http://blog.auinteractive.com/online-collaboration-suites-and-why-i-dont-get-zoho#comment-780 Don't worry, Google will not achieve it's goal of world domination, as long as Yahoo! is around to keep The Beast in check :-) Don’t worry, Google will not achieve it’s goal of world domination, as long as Yahoo! is around to keep The Beast in check :-)

]]> By: Raju Vegesna http://blog.auinteractive.com/online-collaboration-suites-and-why-i-dont-get-zoho#comment-779 Raju Vegesna Fri, 09 Mar 2007 18:52:31 +0000 http://blog.auinteractive.com/online-collaboration-suites-and-why-i-dont-get-zoho#comment-779 Markus: Sorry about the confusion you were having on Zoho. If you have 15 minutes, I'd love to talk to you and explain the big picture. Please let me know. Markus:

Sorry about the confusion you were having on Zoho. If you have 15 minutes, I’d love to talk to you and explain the big picture. Please let me know.

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