Zoho Office Apps on Facebook

July 18, 2007; 09:11 AM
Life just got easier for Facebook users who work online, as Zoho announced its free office applications are now available on Facebook.

This pioneering mashup of online office applications and social networking lets Facebook users with Zoho accounts create, view, and edit Zoho Writer documents, Zoho Sheet spreadsheets, and Zoho Show presentations from Facebook. Shared documents can also be viewed and edited.

“Now, students can chat with friends and work together on homework using Zoho apps, all through their familiar Facebook social network,” said Raju Vegesna, Zoho evangelist. “Working on a group assignment for college just got a lot easier. Over time, as these students become professionals, we hope they will take advantage of our other office applications.”

Zoho Joins with Facebook

The integration between Facebook and Zoho targets students, who can now collaborate and share information and projects more freely inside Facebook via the Zoho applications. In fact, Zoho is the first office application set offered by Facebook.

Facebook users get a unified view of their Zoho documents, spreadsheets, and presentations, which are all displayed on a single page. Zoho is committed to on-going development for Facebook with forthcoming features such as the ability to browse Facebook friends’ publicly shared documents.

The move benefits both companies. Facebook gives its users access to Zoho’s professional suite of free, online office applications. Meanwhile, Zoho taps into Facebook’s established network.

Vegesna said, “We got several requests from many users and well wishers asking us to do this integration. Considering the fact that 30 percent of our users are students, it's a no brainer.”

Integration Insight from Users, Reviewers

“Zoho doesn’t miss an opportunity to connect up with the hot products and services. …While the Zoho Facebook application doesn’t represent a significant market of revenue gain at this point, over time the mashing up of social platforms and applications will become standard. As the gravitational pull of services like Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Xing, Bebo and others gets stronger, the other on demand applications vendors will follow Zoho’s lead.”

Dan Farber, ZDNet

“Valentine’s Day may be months away, but a celebration is underway for a match seemingly made in Web 2.0 heaven: Zoho Apps on Facebook! …The Zoho evangelists–in house and out–nevertheless see big things in store. Not only is Zoho good for students already; upon graduation from college life, Facebookers will join the work force, and bring along their Zoho “business class” application savvy for corporate advantage.

Donna Bogatin

“Hey students, turn off the Bob Marley and listen up. Now you can type an English paper, plan your weekend and chat with the hottie from chem lab all on the same website. Online office software maker Zoho launched a version of its productivity suite on Facebook today. Also included in the release is a central control panel where users can manage all of their private and shared documents within Facebook.”

Michael Calore, Compiler, Wired Blogs

“Kudos to Sridhar and his team for [the Zoho Facebook app]. ...I am sure this is going to be a success among Facebook community. Thanks for listening to blogosphere and coming up with neat apps.”

Krishnan Subramanian

“The simple fact that Zoho is making themselves so accessible is impressive, not to mention that they are in fact the very first office suite available on Facebook. With the steady growth that Zoho has seen, I think they’re turning into one strong competitor.”

Ashley Wagner

“I've added the Zoho Application in Facebook and am pretty psyched. …[As] a college professor who is experimenting with ways to use Facebook in the classroom, I can tell you that this is a great way to share documents and assignments and even presentations with the class group. …And yes, they often don't have the money to spend on desktop applications, so the virtual apps will really help. Showing my students how social networking is quickly moving from the personal play space to the work space is one of my goals and this will be another way to show it.”

Elaine Young, Associate Professor Marketing and eBusiness Management, Champlain College

For more information on Zoho, please visit www.zoho.com and http://blogs.zoho.com/.

About Zoho and AdventNet

Zoho is creating the most comprehensive suite of affordable, online productivity tools for today's knowledge workers. With nearly 120 developers working on the Zoho suite, the company maintains an active dialog with customers, listening to and acting on their feedback. To date, Zoho has launched 15 different applications and more are in the works. For more information on Zoho, please visit www.zoho.com.

Zoho is a division of AdventNet, in business since 1996 providing innovative software tools and serving more than 10,000 customers worldwide. For more information on AdventNet, please visit www.adventnet.com.