June 22nd, 2006
Zoho releases Ajax presentation app - last piece of Web Office jigsaw?
Zoho has just released an online presentation/slideshow app (i.e. a web-based Powerpoint), which is an app I’ve been waiting for. In my Best of Breed Web Office Suite products post back in February, I noted there were very few web-based presentation products at that time. On the other hand there is no shortage of web-based word processing or spreadsheet products. Presentations have been a neglected part of the Web Office Suite, so I’m pleased to see that Zoho has stepped in and developed such a product.
Called Zoho Show, it combines the functionalities of a desktop presentation tool - like Powerpoint - with a web app. Zoho Show aims to make it easy to create presentations and slide shows, via the web browser.
Zoho is claiming that Zoho Show makes them "the first AJAX-based Office suite online". They already have Zoho Writer (online word processor) and Zoho Sheet (online spreadsheet application). The key phrase there is Ajax-based, because the other Web Office Suite contenders are not entirely Ajax-powered. For example Thinkfree (my write-up here) has the three main products in an online suite too: word processing, spreadsheet, presentations. But at this point I believe only the Thinkfree word processor has Ajax components (the others are purely Java-based for now).
Zoho Show has the following functionality:
- Create your presentations online
- Import your presentations from MS Powerpoint & Open Office
- Invite people by email & control your presentations from remote
- Pull-in public images from your Flickr account in your presentation
- Upload images from your desktop
- Publish your presentations & have others view it
- Drag-and-drop text, components within a slide & in between slides
- Duplicate slides easily
Zoho also has a product called Zoho Virtual Office, which is a web-based collaboration groupware with Email, Documents, Calendar and more. They also promise a single sign-on for the Zoho suite of web applications soon. All in all, Zoho is covering all of the bases for a full Web Office suite, probably better than any other companies out there right now - including Microsoft and Google!
