Central Desktop vs Zoho

Although Central Desktop (one of the leading SaaS collaboration and project management services) has been around for 5 years, its management thought that now it's the best time to introduce the 2.0 version of this product. Specially for this event the service interface has been completely redesigned. It became more glamorous and less like Basecamp. Users now have avatars, so the service looks more social. In addition, an online file viewer (like recently in Box.net) has been added. It you can display over 200 file types (including even CAD formats) directly in browser. Moreover, you can print any file to PDF-document and download it to your computer.

We still remember the time when Zoho launched one new SaaS app per month. But, of course, it could not last forever. Having reached almost 30 apps, Zoho recently is only updating them from time to time. But the desire to create something new hasn't gone. That's why Zoho developers decided to take an old service, add some features, rename it and release as a new one. They added Twitter, Email and CRM integration to Zoho Discussions, renamed it to Zoho Commentbox and voila - the new app is ready! Even the prices and descriptions haven't changed. Moreover, the old service - Zoho Discussions - still exists (so Zoho has more apps). Recall, Zoho Discussions (or Zoho Commentbox) allows to create an online customer community for support and ideas collection. Previously, these communities were created on phpbb or vBulletin forum engines, and now on such specialized services. The most famous representative of this class - is Get Satisfaction.

It seems that the days of Flash as a platform for the Rich web interfaces are really coming to an end. Online presentation services, for which the Rich-interface is most important, are ditching Flash in favour of HTML5. Last year, the market leader, SlideRocket released the HTML5-viewer and today the most popular presentation sharing service SlideShare has done the same. Moreover, SlideShare not just added the HTML5-view option but completely removed the Flash-option. Developers say the new HTML5-viewer is 30% faster and displays presentation on tablets (like iPad) and smartphones. In addition, you can now select and copy text from a presentation with the help of the mouse.

About a year ago Zoho added the bug-tracking module to its project-management service Zoho Projects. But the trouble with this module was that it was available only in the most expensive version of the service, which costs $699/year. Now Zoho launches a separate service Zoho BugTracker. "Finally, they wake up!" - most developers will say now and start testing the service. They will be even more delighted when find out that Zoho BugTracker provides the interface on their native language (16 languages supported), integrated with the popular free project hosting GitHub, integrated with Google Docs, fully integrated with Email (for notifications, and adding bugs), contains forum, file storage, activity streams, custom workflows, custom fields, custom views and reports. However, the positive will be finished when the developers take a look at the price.

As known, Zoho uses to make friends with Google. Despite the fact that both companies are developing online offices for SMB, Zoho always combines its applications with Google Apps, rather than compete with them. Zoho is the champion by the number of applications in the Google Apps Marketplace (i.e. integrated into Google Apps). And maybe that's why Zoho for a long time didn't touch the holy grail of Google Apps - email app GMail. In fact Zoho launched it's email service (Zoho Mail) almost two years ago, but it was just a personal email service. It was as functional as GMail and even allowed to use your own domain, but it had no administrative panel that allows to create accounts and manage security policies. So it couldn't be used as a corporate mail server. Now it can.

Zoho has finally filled the most evident gap in its package of online applications for small business - released the online accounting service Zoho Books. Now we can state with full responsibility that Zoho provides the complete set of tools for small business. Zoho Books allows to control financial flows, bank accounts, create and send invoices, receive payments via PayPal or credit cards, plan revenues and expenses. It's integrated with Zoho CRM, Email, and spreadsheets, making it more suitable for accountants and other staff. Zoho Invoice users will be given a simple way to upgrade to Zoho Books. Zoho Books - is the first Zoho product that has no free version. Only the 30-day trial. This is not surprising, since in most small companies there is only one accountant and providing a free single-user version would be nonsense. So the service costs - $ 24/mes for single account. For each additional user you will have to pay extra $ 5 per month.

Zoho has finally added a Helpdesk service to its SaaS suite. We say finally, because the helpdesk sphere - is primary for Zoho. After all, this company has earned its major money thanks to ManageEngine ServiceDesk. And the new service Zoho Support probably will be also successful. For now it's perhaps the most feauture-rich SaaS Helpdesk on the market. It includes ticket system, knowledge base, customer portal, e-mail integration, contacts/companies base (integrated with Zoho CRM), product and SLA catalogs, workflow-engine (for ticket-processing automation), dashboard, alerts (via email and sms), analytical reports, access control system, powerful customization options. And all this (as usual for Zoho) - for low price or free of charge.

Today, Google has significantly improved Google Apps security by implementing two-factor authentication. If an account administrator activates this feature, users after entering Google Apps login / password will need to enter a secret code that will be sent to them via SMS, or generated by mobile application or dictated via phone call. Thus, even if somebody steals your Google login and password - he won't be able to use them without your phone. Such security scheme is used in many online banking and online payment systems. At the moment the new feature is available in Google Apps Premiere Edition. Soon it will appear in free Google Apps accounts, as well as in personal GMail-accounts.