Will Zoho get into Social Networking like MakaMaka?

Google’s answer to FaceBook -     MakaMaka.

A top-secret meeting was supposed to have been held in the GooglePlex.  The attendees had to give written statements stating that they will not reveal the juice of the meeting out. Man, that, is some security.

Google is also supposed to be coming out with some APIs Facebook-style on November5 or so.  This is unusual of Google to state dates in advance but then we will wait.

Will Zoho also come up with something of this kind say Zaka-Zaka or something ?

Why should someone store their data on other’s servers?

Why should someone store their data on other’s servers?

This is the fundamental question that all the Web2.0 services are going to be asked.

If someone has the expertise to have a service on their premise then I would suggest that they go for it. Mind you though that the operations overhead, the maintenance overhead, etc have to borne by the company. But you should also wonder how many are really capable ofdoing this? That is not their core-competancy. An unwanted overhead me thinks. It is more efficient to let someone else take care of this and focus on what one is good at.

Service companies like eBay, Yahoo, Google take care of this overhead. They provide you the service and that is what you should be bothered with. There is no overheads to worry about. You use the service, pay for it and leave it if you find a better system. As simple as that.  But wait, have I addressed the security issue yet ?

H ow many of you question the security provided by Google, Yahoo, eBay, etc when you deal with their services? These services have to bloody well ensure that they are providing secure connections and that the data stored with them is kept safer than Fort Knox stores its gold.  These giants have a brand value and just one slip up, just bloody one slip up and their brand takes a hit and that is not all, the competitor will ensure that he paints the entire town red with this news. Now, that is one word-of-mouth that they do not want, right?

I think Security is something that we have to assume will be top-class. These services’ reputation is at stake if something hanky-panky happens.  Things will be secure till they are not broken by some Guru. Till then, ignorance is bliss for all. Once the Guru does get in, there will be a furore and then the fix will be made better than ever before and probably they will even hire the Guru so that he can find out other loop holes in the system. (Now that is one job I would love to have. Imagine everyone crapping their pants worried what skeletons may fall out of their closets ).

Gartner also states that most of the companies in the next 3 years or so will be service-based. Now, that is an ode to the security provided by the softwares, no?

Google Vs Zoho faceoff

This is an interesting article that I came across.

http://lifehacker.com/software/lifehacker-faceoff/zoho-suite-vs-google-docs-315256.php

Do read the reviews too. It is very interesting.

I think Zoho should start developing the Feed Reader. It is something that is widely used and would do a world of good to Zoho’ s arsenal.  I am not so much bothered about the Web Site Hosting parameter though. I do not think that is too widely used anyway (ie I do not use it ).

My list of features for the Reader would be :-

• All that Google has plus some more.

What is important is to note that Zoho is not resting on its laurels. Moreover, Zoho has not bought any company and does not hence have a culture/engg-ego clash to worry about.  Zoho is more deadly as they are organic and have not taken any short-cuts. That means, that they have overcome quite a lot of hurdles in the process of getting here and that in turn means, they would have learnt quite a lot in the journey( well, I assume that they are smart enough to take a wide-angle look at what all they have learnt) and that should ideally propel them up further.

The only caveat for Zoho is there marketing. They have to get that act right. Google does not have to press the accelerator as it IS the accelerator. Zoho will have to earn that.

Engg wise they have already earned my respect. It will be interesting to see if they will earn the marketing honours too.

Zoho creating an ecology around itself

Zoho is providing a huge list of services (bigger than Google). These services are actually flanking attacks on what the competitors have. If A has feature x, so do I.  If B has features a,b,c,d,e so do I and listen, I have some more too like w,u,v,w.

This is flanking the competition. Try and give whatever the market has and then some m0re. For every competitor these folks have built up a competing product.  In essence, what they have done is they have created an ecology now.  It is actually a very very smart idea because now, they are in a position to capitalize on the folks using this ecology and give feedbacks which they will further incorporate into the services. Then, they will start providing integration services among these individual services and then, can they charge for it.

That is smart. Patient, relentless execution is the key for Zoho. Well Done

Advertising: The ONLY money making alternative?

Most of the services are providing services at nominal prices. Also, there are multiple competitors coming up each day with better, cheaper services. If that be the case, the prices will keep going down further and will become almost negligible (okay, do not take it too literally but then yes, it will be damn cheap).

Now, the revenue source is the services. If the services are being given so cheap, how doe the company make money? Rather, how will a company survive?

More and more, I find that the services are moving towards advertising as their revenue source. The USP of the sites is their traffic. Traffic means eyeballs. Eyeballs means reach. Reach means brand and Brand means Sales. So, it seems logical that putting ads in places that have high eyeball-count, is the way to be.

• Facebook is experimenting with ads.
• Meebo is experimenting with ads.

Will Zoho be taking that route too? I bet their traffic must be going up by leaps and bounds and they really cannot make money on their Zoho Writer and Zoho Sheet kind of products.  It will also help them keep their dev team up and running. The only money making services that are available in the suite are Zoho CRM and Zoho Projects but I doubt if they have reached a large enough customer base to sustain these folks.

Google loving Mozilla

Google is investing in Mozilla. ummm. interesting.  Now, this shows how badly Google hates MicroSoft.

IE was a good browser but then without its tab facility, it was a pain. Mind you, no one recognized the pain as much as when Firefox came up with the tabbed approach. After seeing that feature work in Firefox, I realised that I need to get an operation done asap and ever since then, I have been sticking to Firefox.

http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/10/23/google-continues-to-bankroll-mozilla/ has more details on it.

I love this thing happening. MS has to become smarter, swifter and though its IE 7 is nice, its installation is a pain. I have to wait for almost 30 minutes to get it installed and that is too much.

Thunderbird will also probably get some share of the cash and then, it will be Outlook Vs Thunderbird. Outlook Mail Client is still far far better than Thunderbird. I use Thunderbird and it has been behaving wonky for couple of months even with the latest version updates, it does not dance.

Living in a paranoid world

I am hyper when I work and not so, when I do not. Life seems to be a continuous up-down sequence and I am happy with it else it will be so so boring.

What makes me drive is the paranoia that each sec is something that is being wasted and I have to make the best out of it.  That seems to be fact for all the new kids on the block. Each of them  seem paranoid to the extent that they are releasing features dime a dozen within weeks! This is what is the need of the hour. When each man thinks and lives his dream, we have innovation. When we have innovation, it makes life easy for the rest of mankind.

Paranoia propels me but does not burn me. I have a family who need my time and I tend to keep it that way. Some of the folks go around and burn themselves totally like the flies which get attracted to a burning candle and get themselves burnt. They are driven but is it good, not sure?

SalesForce in India

SalesForce has been going on a World Tour. They recently hit India (Zoho land!) too.

This is getting more and more interesting as the days progress. SF seems to have scented the heat and has turned on all its charms.

I also hear that SugarCRM (allegedly open source CRM) too is doing the rounds nowadays. There was a tough competition with vtiger for Sugar and am not sure if Sugar won that.

The market is hot and the competition getting hotter.

With SF in the bed with Google and almost vying to get married to Google (aka merger/takeover by Google), things are looking a little hot for the competition.

I hate the top-dogs and wish that Zoho wins! Not only because it is small, but because it is versatile too. There is so much that Zoho can do with its arsenal of Zoho products. If they can get their integration act together, then there will be nothing like it in the world, not even Google!

You do not have to believe me, have a look at zoho.com to know the details. Man, they are amazing. Even google does not have the repertoire that these Zoho folks have. Wonder who is driving them and what is driving them. These guys just came to the scene around a year or so and look what they have done. They are KICKING ASS!

Wonder if Google will kick out SalesForce and approach Zoho for a buy-out. Now that will be interesting, ain’t it?!

Social Networks blurring CRM boundaries

    The recent adoption of the Social Networks has blurred the boundaries of CRM.

These Social Networks hold private data but if we do relate these to the CRM applications like Zoho,  a very good database of the end user customer can be created. The customer data can be fetched from these Social Networks using the API that they are providing and we  can make a real-time update. The Sales Guy will be having all the info on the person he is talking to before he even picks up the fone.

This is an interesting thing -private becomes public data.

It will also spell a large number of Security Issues no doubt.

I do wish that Zoho does provide an integration with LinkedIn or FaceBook for that matter. Imagine the contact/lead information that you could get by connecting to these sites! Phenomenal!

Zoho CRM has started Marketing itself!

A new development has come up! Zoho CRM has started using Google Adwords!
I see these ads frequently here in Canada.

Way to go ZCRM. You folks were not marketing aggressively. Good to know that at least now you have
woken up.

You are sitting on a goldmine folks! Make hay when the sun shines.
way to go!

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