Zoho takes on Microsoft and Google
Chief executive Sridhar Vembu outlines Zoho's Web 2.0 office strategy and discusses how his company plans to compete in the office software market
Chief executive Sridhar Vembu outlines Zoho's Web 2.0 office strategy and discusses how his company plans to compete in the office software market
It was just a couple of weeks ago that Microsoft finally released the beta of Office Live Workspace (OLW) -- an offering that many see as as Microsoft's response to the pressure its flagship Office suite is getting from browser-based competitors such as Google (with Google Apps), WebEx, and Zoho.
Rafe Needleman of Webware and I hooked up for a video show, called "Working Webware," to look at some of the up and coming companies and products aimed at businesses. For our first show, Sridhar Vembu, CEO of Zoho and its parent company AdventNet, was on the hot seat.
Zoho is filling out it on demand suite with a database and reporting application. Zoho DB can convert spreadsheets into databases and supports pivot tables.
Zoho is prepping a Business edition of its on demand software suite aimed at small and medium-sized businesses.This new version will compete with Google Apps, which includes only email, calendar, chat, document and spreadsheet applications, and administrative functions, for $50 per user per year.
Last night the San Francisco Web 2.0 crowd filled the high society Herbst Theatre for the Crunchies, a people's choice award program hosted by my friends from TechCrunch, GigaOm, Venture Beat and ReadWriteWeb.
Zoho doesn't miss an opportunity to connect up with the hot products and services. Last week the company announced a version of its main browser-based applications for the iPhone and today it joined the Facebook revolution.
Zoho is finally turning its set of applications into more of an integrated product suite. Today, Zoho introduced Start Page (beta, of course), which serves as a console for Zoho Writer, Sheet and Show.
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The New York Times has a story on the battle brewing between Google and Microsoft. The story doesn't add anything new or Google knols to the converging paths of the two companies.