Zoho Business? Google Apps Still Safe: Zoho NOT Enterprise Ready
So far the Office 2.0 “collective experiment” has been a big snooze, by all public accounts.
At a conference billed as “aimed at discovering the future of online productivity & collaboration,” up and coming productivity application vendors are announcing incremental product enhancements while the big office guns are singing their same old slowly but surely collaboration song.
What’s more, the conference Website itself headlines “What’s New,” dated July 23, 2007! Shouldn’t a cutting edge Web gathering use the cutting edge Web productivity tools it is extolling to BETTER collaboratively communicate with the world via the Web about what is transpiring at the St. Regis Hotel this very moment?
(There is a–not obvious–”live broadcast” link on the conference home page.)
So, what has been happening? Computer world reports:
As Web 2.0 technologies continue seeping into business systems, a new generation of corporate users is starting to gain access to the collaboration capabilities tghey are demanding from IT, according to attendees at the Office 2.0 Conference.
Really? Such a proclamation could be dated from years back.
Google Office 2.0 “insights,” courtesy of Jonathan Rochelle, Spreadsheets: “The consumer expectation (for Web 2.0 tools) is being brought to the workplace.”
Richard McAniff, Microsoft Office VP, was apparently as “insightful” as his Google nemesis: “Web 2.0 tools will become interwoven into coprorate life over the next few years.”
YES, but HOW, exactly?
What about the blogosphere’s favorite Web Office underdog: Zoho?
AdventNet’s Zoho has been teasing BIG enterprise plans all year: The Zoho team made an Enterprise move a New Year’s resolution and Zoho’s evangelist Raju Vegesna personally teased an enterprise launch for Office 2.0 to me earlier in the month when I chatted with him about Zoho’s Google Gears implementation.
When I received official word form Zoho this morning about today’s Office 2.0 “Announcing Zoho Business” new category, I was underwhelmed though: The product is in beta, not fully defined, not clearly priced and a seeming “rearchitecture” of existing services.
The projected $40/user/year pricing is characterized by (not always dislcosed) Zoho advisor Zoli Erdos as undercutting the $50 Google Apps Premiere ENTERPRISE Edition. At the same time, however, Erdos goes out of his way to portray the new Zoho Business product as enterprise unfriendly, using a bizarre “an enterprise sales force is too expensive” rationale.
Erdos is so gung ho to make a semantic point that Zoho Business means “small” business, not “enterprise” business, that any prospective enterprise interest in Zoho will undoubtedly be turned off, thanks to the Erdos non-sales pitch on behalf of Zoho.
Perhaps Erdos wasn’t working for Zoho on January 9, 2007, when Zoho engineering director Manikandan Vembu was cited by AJAXWorld as declaring:
We believe 2007 will be the year of the enterprise Web where AJAX applications will play a crucial role in the enterprise space. We believe this will bring new opportunities for Zoho in enterprises.
If Zerdos is right in shooting down his employers’ Zoho Business as NOT enterprise ready, Zoho CEO Sridhar Vembu only has three months to make good on Manikandan Vembu’s forecast.
Don’t hold your Web Office breath: Zoho (small?) Business is now slated for a formal 2008 introduction, Zoho (big?) business…2009 anyone?
READ my exclusive interview – Why Google Apps Competitor Zoho is Powered by Google Gears Offline
PLUS: Google Apps Packs It Up: StarOffice On Microsoft Desktop Rules and Multiply.com Raises Consumer Media Stakes AND $16.6 million VC