Last week, I began a series on web-based applications for businesses, focusing on Google and Zoho. In today’s article I focus on the Zoho product line, showing the diversity of their applications. Next up, I’ll take a closer look at the applications available from Google.
Last night, I received an email from Zoho announcing their new product lineup being announced at the Office 2.0 conference today.
They are announcing the next evolution in their web-based office suite—Zoho Business and Zoho Personal. Below is the news release giving details on the differences between the two products.
Currently, Zoho has a broad set of applications for individuals and business users and today we are categorizing them and defining our business model. To start with, Zoho Applications will be categorized into two – Zoho Personal & Zoho Business.
Zoho Personal is what we offer today for individuals. As we said previously, our applications will continue to remain free for individuals.
Zoho Business (ZB) is the new category we are launching and it is aimed at small & mid-sized businesses. ZB will be available in two versions – Free & Pro. Below are some of the highlights of Zoho Business.
- Company level Admin Console
- Domain Management (for pointing your domains to Zoho Apps)
- Centralized User and Group Management
- Single Sign-on across several Zoho Apps
- Zoho Apps include Writer, Sheet, Show, Wiki, Notebook, Email, Cal, Tasks, Planner, Viewer, Chat etc.
- Customization Options
- Multiple levels of Security including SSL
- Remote Backup
- Telephone Support and more.
Zoho Business is currently in private beta with a planned public beta launch in October, 2007. Pricing is yet to be determined for the Pro version, but if it’s anything like their prices before, I’m sure it will be reasonable. As you can see, they are going after the small to mid-size business customer, moving them directly into the path of Microsoft.