Zoho announced during the weekend the Zoho Single Sign-on
(SSO), which allows existing users to merge their different Zoho services accounts
into one. As of now the Zoho Single Sign-on currently covers the following 6 services:
Zoho Writer, Zoho Sheet, Zoho Show, Zoho Creator, Zoho Planner and Zoho Chat.
I asked AdventNet CEO Sridhar Vembu whether this news portends a full Web Office Suite
(AdventNet is the company that runs Zoho). Their competitors Zimbra, ThinkFree, JotSpot
and others seem to be moving towards an integrated suite of web-based office products.
Sridhar said yes, that is their intention. He told me:
“We are moving towards a full WebOffice suite. We already have the Writer/Sheet/Show
covered, and those are getting updated at a rapid clip. We also have Zoho Virtual Office,
which offers full Sharepoint style collaboration features. We are working on integrating
these services in a better way, and single sign-on is the first step towards that
integration. Zoho Creator brings Access/VB like database & scripting to the mix.”
Sridhar also said that Zoho Projects and Zoho CRM will be part of the Web Office Suite
mix, as they “provide more breadth and depth to the product offering.”
Zoho’s intent then is, in Sridhar’s words, “to offer a fairly comprehensive suite for
businesses, as they move their data to the web.”
Finally, Sridhar noted that they will offer a downloadable version of their Office
Suite product “once the services mature.” So it seems it won’t just be
web-based!
Disclosure: Zoho is a Read/WriteWeb sponsor
