Zoho: The Best App You've (Probably) Never Heard Of

Post by David Pierce. Find me on Twitter.

Among people who spend a significant amount of time online, like myself, there are some applications that are just standard. We’ve all heard of them, we all use them, and we all consider them to be the best. Google Docs is one such example; Digg might be another one. We like them, we use them, and they become the default application for their functions.

Funny story, though: there’s one application out there that’s better than almost any app I’ve ever tried, but no one ever uses it. It’s feature-rich, has some unique features that make it different than anything else, and does its job better than almost all its competitors. But I’m willing to bet 80% of the people who read this post have never heard of it, and 95% have never tried it. It’s called Zoho.

Zoho combines great things about a huge number of other applications – everything from Google Docs (Zoho Writer, Sheet, Show, and Docs) to Evernote (Zoho Notebook), to invoicing software (Zoho Invoice) and task and project software like Basecamp (Zoho Projects and Planner). There’s even Zoho Mail, which rings a lot like Gmail. And those are only a few of the great products from Zoho, most of which are free (the ones that aren’t free aren’t especially expensive, either). The full list has just about everything you’d need to start a business, run it, and make it huge – or just write a blog post.

Zoho’s even willing to play nice with apps you already use – there’s a plugin for Microsoft Word and Excel, and a calendar you can sync between Zoho and Outlook. Zoho’s smart in doing this – the biggest barrier for most people switching applications is the “head room,” trying to figure out how to set everything up, import everything, and so on. With Zoho, just log in, install a simple plugin, and you’re switched!

You can even sign in to Zoho with your Google or Yahoo account, making the transition process crazy-easy. Now, I’ll admit – not every Zoho feature is the best thing in the history of the world, and they’re not all worth switching for. But the integration between services, the ability to have them all available to you in one place, and the sheer number of offerings mean Zoho, by itself, is replacing a number of other applications for me – Google Docs, for one.

On the Web, where everything tends to be single-purpose, and many of us use different applications for just about each thing we do, that’s a welcome change.

And I don’t think I’m the only one. ReadWriteWeb reported in September 2008 that GE, after spending a ton of time debating between Google and Microsoft’s offerings in the realm, actually chose Zoho. That’s a huge decision for a huge company, and you’d think everyone else would take notice. But for some reason, I still don’t hear about Zoho much.

Zoho’s a fairly large, fairly old (by Web standards) company that’s built a great product over the last several years. It’s where I do all my online writing, and a lot of planning and working with the business side of what I do.

Why haven’t more people heard of Zoho? And if you’ve tried it, what’d you think?

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