webdevmatt

Ok, so for so good on a simple docs and spreadsheets. Zoho has a nice WYSIWYG interface for online editing as well as standard import capabilities for "regular" documents. No download for participation is nice. Works well on both Windows and Mac OS. Will have to evaluate sharing features, but that will come in time.  Sweet direct blog posting features are nice as well.

Blogs

blogger LiveJournal, wordpress, Typepad. Blogger API and metaWeblog API.  No in spaces (MSN) as I can tell out of the gate.

Good

All encompasing interface with access to all tools right at your finger tips. Sharing single documents was, as expected with the "onetime" url. Tagging for easy search and "discouraging" location based document storage (metadata v. folders). I do enjoy the UI of this suite.

Not so good
There is no editing of documents if you are not a member. I’m torn on this feature. Other cloud collab apps allow for "external"/non-member editors, but you need to open up the document to anyone who can get their hands on the email sent to the shared recipient. Zoho on the other hand provides only viewable capabilities for non-member, no matter what permissions you give the shared user. I do like the fact that it can be viewed without a logon, but it’s a bit misleading. While other cloud apps "let you know" that you are sharing with anyone, zoho does not do this. Zoho allows you to send the shared document link without letting you know that the url can be viewed by anyone who has access to that email. Anyone who gets a hold of this email communication will get viewable access to the document.

I will talk on another post my thoughts on what should be done in order to secure these cloud apps. The organization that gets this right will be ahead of the rest when appealing to the business users (Microsoft, this should be you).

Unexpected behavior

1. It took multiple attempts to share a document, or just to get the email notification to go out to the user that the document had been shared.

2. If you give a user read / write access, write access is only available if the user is a zoho member, interesting. The FAQ’s say this is for security reasons. I’m not sure what those security reasons are, maybe that you put in your name / email address therefore you are accountable, puzzling?

3. In the My Folders section, documents that are shared out are not listed in the shared documents folder.

4. Integrates with echo sign, interesting

I have been peppering some documents up on Office Live these days, and it is a “free” beta solution that provides value. That being said I would not be doing myself justice if I didn’t weigh in on the good, the bad and the ugly.

The Good:

Single document access is as friendly as any other of a similar service, much better than an attachment. Friendly and highly visible viewing of the activity of your document, money. Ease of sharing documents from the “document owner” perspective, money. Oh yeah, with Office Live Update, publishing your documents from your Office products, is very very smooth (it is a download / install -> the bad).

The Bad:

Global sharing is still lacking. The boundary of the install has caught some of my collaborators off guard. I guess it can be said that “it’s still beta”, but acceptance will be hampered by the hurdle of an additional step that some business users may shy away from. The user is “not sure what they are getting into”, common IT issue.

The Ugly:

With the need for an install the challenge of not having the appropriate permissions to do the install for non IT types can make things ugly for your collaborators.

As a Windows XP and Vista user, as well as a licensed Office user, the bads and the uglys should not be present. Common guys, make it easy.

More to come, maybe with some objectivity.