zoho

Office Live, you're no Google Docs

Microsoft has announced a milestone with its Office Live Workspace product: It's scored its millionth user. And the company has announced the product will be out of beta this year.

Yay, Microsoft. Now go back and build the service we want, please.

There are people who say that Office Live is a Google Docs competitor. It certainly could be, someday, and I'd like to see that. But it's not right now. What it is right now is a way for people who have paid for the Microsoft Office suite to share files with other people who have … Read more

Zoho launches document sharing service

Today's addition to the rapidly-expanding suite of Zoho's productivity apps is Zoho Share, a straightforward utility for sharing word processing documents, spreadsheets, PDF files, and slide shows. The online app reads in several popular document formats (although not yet the .docx, .xlsx, and .pptx files from Office 2007), and of course Zoho's own documents. It creates embeddable viewers for all of them. Users can comment on files, just as they can on other sharing systems.

In the pre-release beta I looked at, uploading wasn't working and I didn't see a way to create a limited … Read more

Zoho's last stand

Sridhar Vembu, CEO of AdventNet, is not afraid of going up against Microsoft Office or Google Apps. He is also the CEO of Zoho, which recently announced that it had achieved 1 million registrations (between 300,000 and 350,000 log on to the service monthly) for its cloud-based set of productivity applications. Vembu is now making a financial case that Zoho is better positioned than Google to take on Microsoft in the upcoming office suite sweepstakes.

Vembu's analysis is based on a comparison of revenue per employee and profit per employee metrics. "The gap in revenue per … Read more

NetSuite, Zoho post app suite gains

Two on-demand business software firms reported accelerating adoption of their suites today.

NetSuite reported second-quarter 2008 revenue of $36.6 million, up 43 percent from the same period in 2007. Net loss per GAAP was down to $3.1 million in the quarter, compared with $9.6 million in Q2 2007.

The company also announced new midmarket and enterprise customers for its ERP and CRM suites, which are delivered as Web applications. Surgical robotics company Intuitive Surgical adopted NetSuite CRM; Nestle UK used services from NetSuite to launch an online store; and sports market firm Wasserman Media Group adopted NetSuite … Read more

Zoho allowing import of Google Docs files

Zoho, which makes an online productivity suite, is now allowing the import of files from Google Docs.

Thursday's announcement is a bit of a canard, though, because Zoho doesn't read files from Google. Rather, if you follow these steps, you can get your Google docs in Zoho:

Log in to your Google Docs account and choose the documents that you need to export to Zoho Click on More actions -> Save as HTML (zipped) to your desktop In Zoho Writer, click on Import -> Import Google Docs, select the zipped file path and click Import All … Read more

Buzz Out Loud 727: Microsoft to Yahoo: Let's take it slow

Actual tech news today! For example, Microsoft is re-wooing Yahoo, Nintendo is stomping through the console market like Godzilla in Mario's Kart, the first public Firefox 3 candidate is now available, and Apple is trying to win direct downloads for the new iPhone. Oh, and if our caller from UPS is to be believed, those iPhones might be starting to arrive in stores right now! (Dear CBS: Send pie!) Listen now: Download today's podcast EPISODE 727

Microsoft, Yahoo forced into each others’ arms http://www.news.com/8301-13860_3-9947185-56.html http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/technology/AP-Microsoft-Yahoo.html http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7407585.stm… Read more

Zoho Writer search bug exposed private documents

A bug surfaced during development of a group-oriented search feature allowed me to view Zoho documents created by other people that were not intentionally shared with me.

Zoho fixed the bug on Sunday, after I reported it, and said its impact was limited. Still, as a user, it made me think twice about putting private documents online.

On Sunday morning, I went up to my Zoho Writer page and searched on "soccer." The results included two of my documents, but also seven others created by people I didn't know.

I reported the incident to a Zoho technology … Read more

Zoho now accepts Google and Yahoo logins

Online-productivity suite Zoho announced on Wednesday that it now accepts Google and Yahoo logins. An executive from Zoho parent company AdventNet announced last month that Google login compatibility was on the way.

"For Google and Yahoo users who are curious about Zoho but don't want to set up another account, we've removed that hurdle," Zoho 'evangelist' Raju Vegsna said in a release Wednesday. "Users don't have to create a Zoho account to use Zoho applications. We want to make it as easy as possible for everyone to try our online apps."

In addition … Read more

Zoho adds VB macros, pivot tables to its Web spreadsheet

Zoho continues its quest to build the most comprehensive online productivity suite, adding support for macros and pivot tables in its spreadsheet, Zoho Sheet.

The new version includes support for Visual Basic (VB), the scripting language used for Microsoft Excel for macros, said Raju Vegesna, Zoho's chief evangelist. Zoho built its VB engine independent from any Microsoft code, he noted.

"This means your existing macros will now work in Zoho Sheet. This makes Zoho Sheet the first online spreadsheet to understand macros. Even OpenOffice doesn't understand VB macros," Vegesna said in a note about the new … Read more

Zoho to integrate with Google sign-on

Zoho users with a Google username and password will be able to log directly into Zoho applications, according to Sridhar Vembu, founder and CEO of AdventNet, parent company of Zoho.

"Users won't need a separate Zoho account," he told me at the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco. The Google sign-on integration should be finished within two weeks, he said.

Vembu was impressed by Google's cooperation and willingness to work with a competitor. Zoho and Google Docs are both trying to replace Microsoft Office. Google has been willing to contribute code, such as OpenSocial, to … Read more