Now this was an interesting tidbit of news I saw in my Reader this morning, seems Raju and the guys have been busy and have not only a new partnership but also a new product.
Zoho Notebook (not available yet for testing, wonder what they will be announcing at DEMO then?) and it seems it will take advantage of the new partnership with Flixn. I like Flixn, in fact they are even on my wish list of "cool mashup" ideas!
But in all honesty how in the world do you now choose? You have Planner, Wiki and now Notebook all for the same purpose really?! I mean they are announcing Zoho Notebook as
Create, Aggregate and Collaborate on multiple types of content online.
And the Wiki is
Wiki that is as easy to use as a word processor
with group concept, versions, sub-pages and more ...
And Planner is
Online organizer to maintain your todo’s, reminders, notes, attachments etc.
The descriptions may differ but the all do somewhat the same function and in the long run now I have more applications and more ways of collaborating, collaboration is good but simplicity is also something that I hold great value you in. Now if they tell me I can seamlessly integrate my docs, sheets, polls, Wiki pages, planner pages, etc. all together (which does not work as Planner needs a HTML area update to integrate docs and sheets first) then OK but right now I'm sitting here going "great another one" but I'm not seeing the overall point, or is the Notebook the end all be all? Is this the one tool I've been waiting for that really does integrate all the other items together for me?
Can't wait to get in and give it a go... maybe they'll give me a sneak peek user so I can play a little.
11 comments:
Craig, your concern seems to be very valid. Add to the mix of things, Zoho Projects as well.
But everyone likes to have it their own way and each Zoho product would suit the individual's style, I think.
Still you could be using all the Zoho apps too - Zoho Planner for your personal to-dos, Projects for official project management, Wiki as a free website, Notebook for easy collection of materials from around the web or collaboration among your friends on say a fun project or hobby.
Hi Arvind, you are of course right - meaning that each person will choose the tool right for them - whereas I actually use Planner for group projects, Project was a big of overkill for me, and I use the Wiki for a Knowledge Base - but my one problem as always been the multiple things so perhaps Notebook really will solve that for me somewhere I can give one link and they get to all the pieces of the puzzle?
Certainly interesting and I'm anxious to give it a go!
The demo video should have given you ideas of how you will put this to use, Craig. And you should be getting the invite for Notebook in a day or two. That should help you see whether you got all pieces of the puzzle :-)
The demo was great BUT until one actually trys it it's hard to really get a good idea of the integration abilities and how one might give it a go.
I have ideas already which is one of the reason I'm very excited to be getting the test user...
I think this is hugely important, it seems zoho are the first guys to realize one of the necessary features of a productivity application suite is to actually use the data from other applications. Imbedding a spreadsheet in a word doc and vice versa is very useful in businesses. Until someone did this, as far as I'm concerned, it was not ready for real businesses to use it. Now that someone has it's a different ball game.
Craig - I did use it in the alpha release and talked about a number of potential use cases. I'm impressed (which takes a lot) - performance is an issue which they know and how it is bundled makes a difference to how/where/when it gets used.
@Dan excellent point and something you've nailed about Zoho IMHO they "get it" and know what it's like - bummer you didn't make it to Bangalore you would have liked meeting Arvind and Hyther who were there.
@Dennis - I was skeptical at first as well but after a few times of using and playing around I'm "born again" for me this is the first of the new "killer apps" it takes mashups to a whole new level.
Craig - if you think about what I have said concerning core enterprise data (accounting, CRM etc) then it could help certain SAP users to get at information in a fresh way and provide yet another path to ad hoc 'stuff' which might include modeling and monetizing project plans etc.
I could envisage seeing Zoho as part of the SAP widget economy.
Just a couple of quick thoughts.
@Dennis, it's an interesting idea during the Bangalore SDN Day Hyther from Zoho should a presentation where Zoho was embedded into Duet for example and I talked about the Zoho/SAP demo I prepared for Office 2.0 (still need to blog it man I've been lazy)
The possibilities are already there and Notebook could bring even more a point and click rich media environment allowing for collaboration and fully connected to the SAP system - kind of blows the mind for what is possible...
Blimey - Zoho/SAP? Were you at Office 2.0 in SFO last October? I was too. That needs writing up.
Yep - mained our "booth" most of the time though while the others went off in search of the cool things ;-)
Got asked the question "Why are you here" quite often and showed pieces of my demo due to net problems with the hotel couldn't show it all.
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