Zoho vs Basecamp

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.

As one of the Enterprise 2.0 classics said: "If I had more time, I would have created a simpler application". That's how 37Signals (the company behind the project management app Basecamp) is spending its time. Basecamp was launched about eight years ago and since then it remained almost unchanged. Every new feature was added only if it was really necessary. Due to this, Basecamp has retained its simplicity and effectiveness. But it turned out that the Basecamp developers during all these years not only defended the app from the complications, but also have been inventing more perfect and simple structure. And this year they decided to roll it out. It's hard to believe, but the new version of Basecamp is even easier and more effective.

37Signals decided to market a combined package of its key SaaS services for business - 37signals Suite, similar to how Google sells its services as Google Apps. 37signals Suite includes Basecamp (project management system), Highrise (CRM system), Campfire (group chat, which can be used as communication tool in this bundle) and Backpack (group organizer+wiki, which can be considered as an intranet portal in this bundle). The integration between applications in the package doesn't rock for now, but at least the user base will be unified. 37signals Suite is prices so that in most cases it's cheaper to buy the whole suite than two separate services. Price starts at $99 per month - for 35Gb of memory, 35 projects in Basecamp, 20000 contacts in Highrise, 5000 pages in Backpack, 50 simultaneous chats in Campfire. Though it seems much more expensive than the cost of Google Apps (50$/year), but you shouldn't forget that Google charges this fee for each user, and in 37Signals Suite the number of users is unlimited.

Let's start from what happened last week. Without any announcements 37Signals dropped a low end plan from the Basecamp sign-up page ($24/month for 15 projects and 5GB of disk space). Now, the cheapest option on this page is $49 for 35 projects and 15 GB. Of course, this caused a loud reaction of bloggers and competitors. Bloggers started speculating that Basecamp feels so confident that has lost interest in small business. Competitors started pitching their alternative services and Zoho even pushed the promotion for customers switching from Basecamp to Zoho Projects. 37Signals co-founder Jason Fried has clarified the situation. "In fact, Basecamp hasn't raised prices. Existing users continue to pay the same price for the same subscription plans. The company is just experimenting with the sign-up page design. The $24 plan is still available (inside) for those who sign-up for free account and then wants to upgrade". Nevertheless, the idea of the experiment is clear: Basecamp focuses on the more "expensive" clients. Here's why:

Jason Fried, 37Signals co-founder, exactly knows how to create beautiful systems. Basecamp users and Ruby on Rails developers know this. Recently he published the video with his vision of how to create a beautiful workspace (on the example of 37Signals) and how online tools can help. Jason started with the fact that in most companies collaboration is organized absolutely wrong. It's based on the constant interruptions. Employee just turns on the computer, and the interruptions begin: instant messages, email notifications, phone calls and of course, co-workers that come and ask something. No one can work productively in such environment. And, often collaboration software (especially messengers and microblogs) doesn't help to mute this noise, but increase it.

37Signals, the developer of online project management service Basecamp, according to the recent investment round, has become the most expensive company in the Internet services market. The group of investors, led by Yardstick Capital and Institutionalized Venture Partners purchased 0.000000001% of the company for $1. So, the potential 37Signals' market price has increased to about $100 billions. This was officially  announced in the company blog. During the company-wide meeting, dedicated to this event, Jason Fried (37Signals founder), announced, that all SaaS applications, developed by 37Signals, including Basecamp, will become free in order to attract more users and to reach the estimated userbase already in 2013.