Zoho Archive

Online office suite provider Zoho has announced the launch of Zoho Gadgets today. Widgets are available for: Zoho Docs, Zoho Mail, Zoho Calendar, Zoho Tasks, Zoho Contacts and Zoho Planner. Zoho Gadgets will also work on any OpenSocial-compatible social network. The suite of Zoho widgets will also work on Facebook and Gmail.

The widgets will allow Zoho users to stay current with their content even when not actually on the Zoho site.

Zoho has also created a generic embed which will basically work anywhere – meaning you can embed your Zoho apps into your blog or website. It’s a smart move for Zoho because it will potentially provide them with free marketing via their users pushing out the widgets.

Zoho has announced that they now support app deployment to Google AppEngine today. Basically what this means is that if you create an application in Zoho Creator, you can now quickly deploy it to Google AppEngine which will allow for more discovery and potentially up the take rate for the app.

Zoho notes that it takes only three steps to get an app onto Google AppEngine. First the application must be created in Zoho Creator. Next the developer must create a "placeholder" in Google AppEngine. Last, the developer deploys the application from Zoho Creator to Google AppEngine. The big benefit is that Zoho Creator takes care of writing the Python code for Google. Currently Google only supports the Python language on AppEngine.

Zoho self-reports 130,000 applications have been built using Zoho Creator. Back in September, Zoho launched an app marketplace and I assume today’s AppEngine announcement is an extension of Zoho’s desire to get apps discovered.

Here’s an overview from Zoho on how the Google AppEngine deployment works:

Office suite provider Zoho is announcing the launch of Zoho Marketplace this morning. The Zoho Marketplace brings together Zoho users and Zoho application developers and allows users to install applications that will aid in user effectiveness. The marketplace is similar to other developer offerings by Facebook, MySpace and OpenSocial.

Applications are built in Zoho Creator and the company notes that to-date over 100,000 applications have been built using the platform. Developers decide whether to charge a fee for their applications or provide them for free.

What makes the Zoho Marketplace interesting is that as a Zoho customer you can place a request for an application. My guess is that any application request will see action from developers on the Zoho network. Check out all of our Zoho coverage including why we think they are a great fit for IBM.

Here’s a cute overview of how the Zoho Marketplace works:

Online office suite provider Zoho has announced the launch of Zoho Docs this morning. You can think of Zoho Docs as a set of folders which help keep your documents neatly organized within the Zoho platform. Zoho applications are supported in Zoho Docs and they have also built the ability to upload other documents. Groups are supported which allow multiple people to keep track of documents in folders. Zoho Chat is also available so you can chat with others in your Zoho buddy list directly from Zoho Docs.

This may seem like a small announcement but it could have large implications in Zoho’s ability to cross-promote their applications. Get users using the Zoho tools as a file explorer replacement and it can help cross-sell other Zoho services. This app screams for a desktop where a toolbar could sit on the desktop at all times to allow for super-fast document retrieval.

Check out all of our Zoho coverage, including our interview with Zoho evangelist Raju Vegesna.

Office suite provider Zoho is announcing the launch of recordable macros in their Zoho Sheet application today. Basically creating a macro is as easy as clicking the start button, completing the actions you desire, and then clicking the stop button. Zoho then creates the Visual Basic code which you can pick up and modify as you like. The macro can then be applied to other spreadsheets.

Here’s a video overview showing how to create a macro in Zoho Sheet:

In a chat with Zoho evangelist Raju Vegesna, he said outside of Microsoft Excel, Zoho Sheet is the only product to auto-generate Visual Basic code based on user actions. Earlier this year Zoho Sheet added support for pivot tables. And check out our interview with Raju to learn more about Zoho.

Project management software provider Wrike has announced the launch of their enterprise version today. The biggest update in this new version is the ability to reschedule tasks easily by using task dependencies. This allows you to change a top task and all sub-tasks will follow suit. If you’ve worked with project management software, rescheduling can be a real pain.

Wrike’s enterprise version offers exporting and importing options into Microsoft Office applications. Wrike is priced at $15 per user with unlimited projects.

While Wrike compares themselves to Microsoft Office, I’d suggest a more accurate comparison is with other SaaS/hosted project management tools including Zoho Projects. Zoho Projects is capped at $80/month for unlimited projects and unlimited users. With Zoho offering a full office suite of tools, my initial take is based on looking at the suite and pricing, Zoho seems like a better choice. Though both tools offer robust solutions that appear more attractive than Microsoft Project.

Office suite provider Zoho has signed a 6-month trial partnership with Swiss telco provider Swisscom. The partnership will bring Zoho products Writer, Sheet, Show, Notebook and Meeting to a custom version of the Zoho Business suite. The tools will be available within the Swisscom Teamnet portal. Swisscom currently has over 300,000 business customers.

Zoho reports that their userbase is 50% US, 25% European and 25% in the rest of the world. This past April, Zoho partnered with Badhui in China. Back in March, the Telegraph newspaper out of the U.K. voted Zoho as one of the 101 websites they couldn’t live without.