Zoho - Office 2.0

Nikhil Rastogi, Dec 09, 2007 1137 hrs IST

Is this the future of Office?

EXPERT REVIEW

Starting off with Zoho

To start off with, you would need to pick any one of the products listed at www.zoho.com, I chose the most popular and widely used Zoho Writer. The good thing is that since it's a suite, you don't need to separately register for all the remaining consumer apps. If you'd like to delve into enterprise apps like Zoho CRM, you would need additional registration. In fact, most Web 2.0 apps make it even simpler, they use a demo login to glimpse over the software before even registering for free.

Registering is snap. Just enter the required essential details and you can start editing right away. I'm glad the new Web 2.0 movement has done away with tedious marketing survey registrations (remember those?).

Working with files

When logged in, the layout is very self explanatory; you have the editor with several icons related to tasks that can be performed, you can hover over them for explanations.

Pay particular attention to "Minimize/Maximise" view in Zoho Writer that allows one to view further functions other than those related to the Writer application at hand. For most of the part, Zoho apps have a similar feel but not particularly a consistent interface. E.g., all Zoho apps allow to share your documents freely from a Share menu, Zoho Writer has a text menu item above the toolbars, while Zoho Sheet (Spreadsheet) has a button on the top right hand corner.

These aren't show stoppers, but any application aiming towards 'Suite-wise' unification needs to be consistent across its own apps. This will of course change slowly as these apps are evolving towards a more unified structure.

USER COMMENTS

good

by rana, Delhi, on Dec 15, 2007 02:27 PM, Report abuse Reply

Thanks for the nice review on Zoho, Nikhil! Believe you read about the launch of Zoho Show. I would like you to give an early invite. Do mail me if you are interested.

by Aravind, Chennai, on Dec 13, 2007 06:21 PM, Report abuse Reply

Nikhil, Would be glad to arrange a demo/trial account of our tech preview for you - drop me a line and I will have it set up for you. Cheers, Sumanth For the Live Documents team

by Sumanth, Bangalore, on Dec 11, 2007 07:18 PM, Report abuse Reply

One can use the invite yourself button on Live documents so no need to wait for an invite.

by v_2krdee, Mumbai, on Dec 10, 2007 03:06 PM, Report abuse Reply

Link to get an invitation for Live Documents http://live.instacoll.com/instasecure/showRegistrationPage.do

by v_2krdee, Mumbai, on Dec 10, 2007 03:08 PM, Report abuse

any free download is there to check

by prem, BANGALORE, on Dec 10, 2007 01:08 PM, Report abuse Reply