TMCnet News

Zoho, Omnidrive Announce Tech Partnership
[January 29, 2007]

Zoho, Omnidrive Announce Tech Partnership


TMCnet Contributing Editor
 

Zoho, which sells Web applications, and Omnidrive, a Web storage platform vendor, have announced a technology partnership that provides users of the Omnidrive platform the ability to view, edit, share and publish office and other types of documents from directly within Omnidrive using Zoho products.



The announcement of the partnership comes at the same time that Zoho and Omnidrive both launch web service API's that will allow other applications to directly integrate and operate with the two platforms.

Users of Omnidrive will now be able to double-click on any supported document from within the Omnidrive Web interface to directly edit documents using Zoho applications.

Omnidrive allows a user to store all their files online, and with this partnership users are no longer required to download their documents to view or edit them. The supported Zoho applications include Zoho Write, a word processor, Zoho Sheet, an online spreadsheet and Zoho Show, a web-based presentation editor. The supported document types range from Word documents and HTML pages through to PowerPoint presentations.

The product integration, according to Zoho officials, marks "the first time that a storage provider and a provider of Web office applications have partnered to provide a full desktop-like experience on the Web.

The way company officials describe it is "Omnidrive's ability to aggregate storage and to provide access from anywhere together with the first-class office applications from Zoho combine to form an environment where users can now access, collaborate and publish common files with just a Web browser."

Omnidrive and Zoho officials like to say they have "beaten Google, Microsoft (News - Alert) and many other larger companies to be the first to provide an end-to-end product for users." From the ability to easily link files from the desktop with Omnidrive, through to the advanced editing capabilities of the Zoho applications, this collaborative effort marks what they consider "a big step forward for the role of the Web in enabling better access, collaboration and sharing of documents."

Last September AdventNet Inc., creators of Zoho, and WebEx, a vendor of software-as-a-service applications for collaborative business on the web, announced that Zoho's Web-based CRM and office productivity tools would be available via the new WebEx Connect application grid.

Zoho CRM is described by company officials as "a complete relationship lifecycle management solution delivered as a service," while Zoho Writer, Sheet and Show each provide full-featured "office in a browser" functionality.

The marketing pitch Zoho officials give is that by integrating sales force automation with lead generation and campaign management combined with help desk, customer service and order tracking, small and medium-sized businesses can manage the entire customer lifecycle from any browser without the hassle and cost of traditional premise-based software applications.

David Sims is a contributing editor for TMCnet. For more articles please visit David Sims' columnist page.



[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]