Unhandled Perception
From the mind of a developer.

Tuesday, April 18, 2006

Is ZoHo what the future is for software and the internet?

You decide. They seem to have a decent base for online applications (applications that remove the software from the users computer and run off the internet). My feeling is this direction may be good for document collaboration, low-cost (if any) startup for an office suite for some users, and maybe mom-and-pop computer user but for users like me its not something that is attractive. I prefer to have control over patches to software, software upgrades, locations where my documents have traveled**. Who knows, maybe I will be in the future minority on this one.

Link:
http://www.zoho.com/


** - Even though the documents will reside on your system I still see them possibly traveling to the server for certain functions and features of the host application.

posted by Veign at 12:44 PM

6 Comments:

  • I agree and uninstalled. The spreadsheet program they have seems to be pretty good. The rest of your post I agree with but I don’t know if there will be a future majority in this area. Quality, performance, and stability do not seem to be the number one priority right now with a lot of these new online programs. I think you posted a week or so back that MS live was getting better but I can’t seem to get into any of their new live beta programs. Who know what the future holds for this high tech world anyway. Have you run into the new Google Romance beta, what’s next…..later

    By Blogger Gary McCurry, at 11:50 PM EST  

  • Nice views. Thanks for mentioning Zoho :-)

    By Anonymous Arvind, at 1:26 AM EST  

  • What if I'm poor and don't have internet access, either for a month or forever? I need resident software. I can't see myself ever using online software except for web-dependent apps like email, which is non-essential to me.

    By Blogger zridling, at 11:51 PM EST  

  • Agreed. I know that the world will get wired more and more daily and that broadband will be the affordable (if not free) standard for everyone at some point but you just can't rely on that connection...

    By Blogger Veign, at 12:18 PM EST  

  • Everything sounds good! But, whats your feeling if the same guys had an cheap offline version sync with the online one? Its always possible!

    This was a similar argument when people once started adopting computers? Isn't this any different with internet today?

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 12:58 AM EST  

  • If they offer a cheap offline version why would you need to snyc with the online version? If you say so you can collaborate on the documents and work from any computer anywhere then I think a more generic solution would be better. Basically if thats the argument then providing a service like GotoMyPC would work with a slight twist. Someone could provide a service where documents reside on the users computer, are sync'd to a website (let the user mark which ones), and the documents can be edited / marked / shared from the server. Basically don't limit the document type.

    The service will, on the most basic level, be a backup service with features that ride on top. Features would be; collaboration service to share documents or 'virtual folders' with an approved list, online editing capability on common document types, online markup of documents, sync functions to push changed documents back down to the users PC. The service would or could be called a 'Virtual Office'.

    As far as difference with the internet; huge difference. The internet does or will not stop me from working, as its a tool. An online only Office Suite becomes an integral part of my work and without the connection I would not be able to work. No longer just a tool.

    By Blogger Veign, at 10:21 AM EST  

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