Zoho Discussions vs Google Groups

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.

Zoho unveiled its anniversary (twentieth) service. It is Zoho Discussions - a solution for company forum. Zoho recommends to use this tool as a customer support forum, but you can also setup access rules and use it as an intranet forum for internal collaboration. Unlike the popular forum engines (phpbb, vbulletin), Zoho Discussion provides less features, but the functions that are important for customer support are quite powerful. Besides the solution setup (on your own domain) and administration is much more easier than in case with common forum CMS. The best way to see Zoho Discussions in action is to visit Zoho support forum, that uses the same platform.

Socialtext has released version 4.0 of its enterprise social platform, and the main new feature is the ability to create groups. At first glance it seems that it's a little feature, and the new release is issued only for PR. However, all genious is simple, and Socialtext - is one of those companies that earn good money on these things. Groups - online spaces for communication and collaboration - are important for enterprise. These may be department-centric spaces, or workspaces for project teams, or communities of interest (yes, they are also useful for business, as they bring staff together). But how easy it is to create an online group space, for example, in Sharepoint? It's complicated enough for not creating it at all.

Finally Google has made this simple and logical move - Google Groups have been added to its online suite of business applications. Google Groups allow you to create workspaces for departments or projects that include wiki, discussions and files. And also Google Groups allow you to quickly provide access to the various elements in Google Apps (documents, calendars, videos, sites) to certain group of employees. And when the user is excluded from the group, he loses access to all the associated resources. Groups in Google Apps can be created either by the administrator or users themselves, if the administrator has allowed this. The group owner set up access rules, public access options, invites participants and moderate their actions.