Zoho at Risk as Yahoo Zimbra Attacks Google Apps
YAY Yahoo! The Web Office game is finally gearing up (pun intended) following the snoozer of a Office 2.0 Conference.
Yahoo’s acquisition of Zimbra leaves two big prospective casualities in its wake: Google Apps and Zoho.
Google, of course, can take care of itself. Zoho, on the other hand, is still the little Web Office suite that could, despite being under the wings of Mahatma Gandhi inspired AdventNet.
While Zoho has been runing a shrewd blogosphere goodwill campaign, blogger boosting–paid and unpaid–can take a product under development only so far when three high powered, highly capitalized, publicly traded behemoths are duking it out for the same territory: Microsoft, Google, Yahoo.
Yahoo has come out enterprise fighting with a bold acquisition of Zimbra:
The acquisition of Zimbra will help Yahoo! to expand its presence in universities, businesses and through ISPs by enabling organizations to host e-mail on or off premises with their own domain. Zimbra’s offerings include rich, AJAX-based e-mail, calendar, and contact management features that can be used both on and offline. Their open platform enhances the user experience by enabling creative mash-ups called Zimlets that tie in valuable Web services to e-mail, and can be tailored to fit the needs of every customer.
Google is plowing along with its enterprise ambitions in a Cap Gemini reseller deal: Can CapGemini Really Make Google Apps Matter in the Enterprise?
BUT Zoho in the Enterprise? NO 2007 WAY! So declares Zoho advisor Zoil Erdos, incredulously: Zoho Business? Google Apps Still Safe: Zoho NOT Enterprise Ready.
Nevertheless, some at Zoho are still Microsoft dreaming: Zoho to Beat Microsoft and Google: Only billions in Sales to Go!
Zoho will undoubetdly persevere with its regular stream of incremental product enhancements and continue to be cheered by a dutifull blogosphere for it. The Zoho virtual handwriting is more and more on the wall, however.
ALSO: Yahoo Buys Zimbra: Beats Google for Web Office Leadership and YAY! Matt Cutts Gets Google Slide Show: Ditch PowerPoint for Presentations?
PLUS: FB Fund: Facebook VCs Divide and Conquer F8 Application Developers