May 14th, 2008
Zoho's login gambit: It works
Zoho on Wednesday said that anyone with a Yahoo or Google account–basically everybody–can use the company’s on-demand applications without creating a new account.
The gambit worked on me. I perused a few Zoho demos before, but didn’t get around to creating a full account. But since my Yahoo and Google accounts work I gave it a whirl. Zoho also allows you to import your contacts.
On its blog, Zoho says: “We obviously want many users to try out and use our applications.”
Memo to Zoho: It works. What will really be interesting is watching how new accounts grow over the next few months. Chances are fairly good that Zoho will get a bevy of folks trying out its applications. Will these newbies graduate from Zoho Writer to CRM? Zoho sure hopes so.
Dennis Howlett notes that Zoho’s login approach isn’t that big of a deal, but does raise interesting questions. The largest one: How will this Google login approach go over with the search giant since it owns Google Docs?
Both Yahoo and Google require an extra click to grant access, but that’s a small hurdle.
Zoho has turned up the heat on its rivals and may have paved the template for other online applications to garner rapid adoptions. You want signups? Piggy back on Yahoo and Google accounts already created.
Larry Dignan is Editor in Chief of ZDNet and Editorial Director of ZDNet sister site TechRepublic. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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