An integrated approach to online tools
Dear Zoho
I have recently tried to make the leap to Zoho for all my needs - replacing my Office suite, mail client and local hard drive storage. I love your products although I beleive that you have left out the part that I think should be essential to the success of your suite, namely integration. Here are a few examples of what I mean:
Chat, Emailing and sharing all depend upon good contact information. Zoho must provide a simple and efficient way of importing and managing contact information. A killer app for this area is to ensure synchronisation with the mobile phone. MobileMe from Apple is a good start and you would do well I believe to look at this area.
When I am in Zohomail, when I receive a mail I can't add the contact information to my contacts base. When I want to import from Outlook I have to import as a CSV file. Once I opt for Zoho then my iPhone contacts will no longer be in sync. Do you have a calender app? How ill my iPhone sync to this? If someone sends me a meeting request what happens? When I use ZohoChat do I give up Skype? Do I have to encourage all my contacts to move from Skype? Why not integrate Skype into ZohoChat - Fring has. I would go on but I think that you get the idea.
When I receive a Word doc attachment why can't I open it in Zoho Writer and/or save it to Zoho Docs? If I have a Powerpoint that I want to show someone can I, from the file, look up the person in my contacts base and give them access?
I suspect that you have thought of these scenarios and have them on the road map. My view is that an intergated suite, taking into account that you won't migrate users from massively successfu product like Skype, will be what enables Zoho to win.
I remain a great supporter but won't be moving lock stock and barrell over to Zoho yet!
Regards. James.