BP6_2009102_Web 2.0 Zoho Docs

Zoho Docs is an online collaboration site similar to Google Docs. Users can synchronously or asynchronously collaborate on an wide variety of different types of documents or projects. The Zoho applications are divided into two different categories: office applications and business applications.

Zoho Office Applications

Writer

Notebook

Wiki

Sheet

Chat

Mail

Show

Planner

Zoho Business Applications

CRM

Creator

Meeting

People

DB & Reports

Projects

Invoice

For this blog post I’m going to focus on the office applications. Most of the Zoho office apps are virtually identical to the Google apps.

Writer is an online word processor that functions similarly to Microsoft Word. From my limited experiments in Zoho Writer, the most obvious advantage over Google is that the formatting seems to be easier. When I was working in Google docs last month with my EDE team, we struggled with formatting throughout the entire project. Indenting was inconsistent between editors and we were unable to give the document on overall consistent look in Google. We were however able to fix the formatting issues when we exported the document to Word, but it was time-consuming. One disadvantage is that Zoho Writer is not supported in Safari, only Internet Explorer and Firefox.

Zoho Sheet is a spreadsheet application similar to Microsoft Excel. Zoho Sheet has a variety of sample sheets and public templates that users can use to quickly create spreadsheets with charts, tables, and graphs. Available templates can also be tagged so that users can quickly find the type of templates they’re looking for.

Other apps available in Zoho Docs include Notebook, an online note-taking tool, Wiki, for creating Wiki sites, Chat and Mail, for interacting with other users while collaborating on documents, Show, for creating slideshow presentations, and Planner, for managing to-do items, notes, and appointments.

As with any online collaboration tool, Zoho Docs can be a valuable asset for students and teachers. Teachers can work together on curriculum for shared courses and have a centralized location for course material or content that can be accessed from anywhere. Students can collaborate on assignments when working in groups and be able to access their files from home or from school regardless of what type of computer and software they have access to.

References:

Zoho docs. (2009). Retrieved October 11, 2009 from http://docs.zoho.com/index.do/