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Zoho has added some features to its instant messaging client, Zoho Chat, and dubbed it version 2.0. It remains a decent but unspectacular Web-based IM client, but it has a nice business slant to it, and it integrates well into Zoho's suite of business apps.

As an IM client, Zoho Chat does not compare favorably to Meebo. It supports fewer networks. While the bases are covered -- Zoho supports Yahoo, AIM, MSN, ICQ, Google, and Jabber -- Meebo supports those six networks as well as Facebook, MySpace, Flixster, and server other consumer IM networks. Meebo also does a pretty good imitation of a desktop IM client: It lets you pop your buddy list out of the standard browser frame and into a standalone vertical list, much like a typical software app. Zoho doesn't have this feature.

Zoho Chat: It's no Meebo, but that's probably fine if you have a real job.

(Credit: Screenshot by Rafe Needleman/CNET)

However, where Meebo has fun extra chat-based services, like public "rooms," where you can chat up people who share you astrological sign, Zoho offers instead three business-focused chat services: A support box, a personal live chat widget, and free-for-all "shoutbox." Each of these is designed for different community and communication business needs. The Live Support box can connect Web visitors with any one from a list of users in your company that you designate, for example, and the shoutbox might be a good option if you want to give your customers a place to talk to each other on your site.

You can, of course, bend Meebo to the needs of business. I've done so in the past: When Firefox d.0 shipped, I set up a shoutbox-type room for people to talk about their experiences. Zoho's focus on business uses, though, makes the service easier to navigate when that's your mindset.

Zoho is calling Chat the "common bus that runs across most of the Zoho applications." That means, in part, that you can get alerted when someone is trying to reach you when you're in the Zoho word processor, even if you don't have Zoho Chat open. Of course, you could get the same thing with a standalone desktop IM client.

But the service integrates in other ways with other Zoho apps. For example, you can start a Zoho Meeting screen-sharing session within Zoho Chat, and Zoho has thrown the natural-language entry field of its calendar into a corner of the Chat inteface.

Zoho Chat is functional. It is a solid addition to the Zoho business suite, even if it is not a compelling Web IM app on its own.

Zoho is improving its online word processor, Writer, with a revised user interface and a few new useful features.

The interface change is a have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too experiment. The new "MenuTab" UI gives you drop-down choices from the top level of the menu, but you can also press on a top-level menu choice to display an icon bar with identical options. The icon bar is nothing like Micrsoft Office 2007's tab bar, which supports many more options and has more complicated different ways to use it.

MenuTab is a curious design, but it does work. And users who grow accustomed to using the system in one mode likely won't see much of, or be bothered by, the parallel other mode.

Zoho Writer 2 is really easy to use in spite of a redundant interface.

(Credit: Screenshot by Rafe Needleman / CNET Networks)

Zoho is said to offer simultaneous collaborative editing, as Google Docs does, but when I tested the app I found it far too easy to over-write another user's edits. I do hope this gets fixed very soon. The service also offers a text chat window for collaborating editors. And there's full revision and change tracking in each document, should you ever want to undo the changes someone has made to your doc.

The new version has good sharing options for documents. You post directly to a few different blogging services from Zoho Writer, which is a very nice feature for bloggers. You can also edit in a print view, which shows you page breaks an margins. It's a good working display; even if you never plan to print the document you're working on, you may find the extra white space and page breaks help you focus on your text.

Zoho Writer users Google Gears to give users offline access to their files. Users can sign in using Google or Yahoo credentials. Real geeks may like the embedded LaTeX equation editor.

I find Zoho Writer 2.0 to be a strong word processor that's incredibly easy to learn and use, even more so than Google Docs. The dangerous collaboration function means I can't recommend this product, yet, as a workgroup app. But I wrote this review solo in Zoho, and it didn't give me a minute of confusion or trouble.

Online app provider Zoho announced Tuesday that it has added single sign-on support for Zoho CRM, its on-demand customer relationship management app for organizations that run businesses online. According to the company, Zoho CRM users will be able to access all of Zoho's services and won't be prompted to re-authenticate when they switch between applications. Zoho CRM is the last of the company's applications to add single sign-on.

Mio.tv, a company that offers music videos and other entertainment clips for Latin Americans, announced Tuesday that it has acquired Spanish social network Wamba for approximately $5.1 million. According to the company, it acquired Wamba to extend its reach and influence in the Latin American community.

Online domain name marketplace Sedo acquired RevenueDirect, a domain parking service, the company announced Tuesday. According to Sedo's executives, it's trying to attain more market share in the U.S., and its acquisition of RevenueDirect is a key component in that strategy. The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

myYearbook.com announced Tuesday that its "Causes" application and its users have removed more than 1 million pounds of CO2 from the atmosphere through donations. A portion of the funds received by myYearbook through its social network and applications was donated to charities like Carbonfund.org, which fights against global warming and climate change. So far, the company has donated over $250,000.

Zoho announced on Wednesday that in light of Google suspending Google Notebook, it has enhanced its own service, Zoho Notebook.

According to the company, it has added a Google Notebook import function, which allows users to import all their Google Notebooks into Zoho's software. The company also added the ability to link between notebooks, record audio and video, and chat with other Zoho users through a new instant-messaging application built into the software. The updated Zoho Notebook is available now.

Mixx, a Digg-like social site that caters to a more "mainstream" audience, has inked a deal with online advertising agency Federated Media to handle all its advertising endeavors. Mixx now joins Federated Media's group of content sites that employ the company to connect them with advertisers.

Federated Media's executives said they will work closely with Mixx representatives to develop "conversational marketing executions" that will cater to Fortune 500 brands. Advertising rates have yet to be determined.

OneSeason.com, a company that offers virtual goods and a gaming platform for sports enthusiasts, announced that it has secured $3.5 million in a Series A round of financing that was led by Charles River Ventures. The company's founder, Mike Sroka, said he will use the funding to build out the site's virtual-goods marketplace and enhance features in its social-gaming network.

Use of Twitter in the United Kingdom has increased tenfold year-over-year, according to a report from market research firm Hitwise. According to the report, "Twitter ranked as the 291st most visited Web site in the U.K., up from a ranking of 2,953 (in 2007), for the week ending January 19, 2008. U.K. Internet traffic to the Web site has increased by 974 percent over this period." Hitwise also said Twitter is still growing at a rapid rate, which is partly due to British celebrities publicly joining the site.

Social network Bebo on Thursday announced that it has partnered with Motionbox, a service for sharing personal videos, to bring video-publishing tools to Bebo's users. Those who wish to use the Motionbox platform on Bebo will have access to its basic membership, which includes online-editing tools and secure storage. Bebo users who want to post high-definition videos will need to sign up for Motionbox's subscription service and pay $29.95 per year.

Microsoft has enjoyed a stranglehold on the Office suite market for well over a decade. But now that the Web is slowly becoming a quasi-replacement for the desktop, Microsoft Office has some stiff competition in the form of online Web Office apps. And although they may not appeal to the spreadsheet maven that relies on Excel's power, each offers functionality that diminishes the need for Microsoft's products.

So, in the time between now and when the software giant delivers the much-anticipated online version of Office, our options are far from few. Here are three that might fit your needs:

Google Documents

Although it's best known for its search and advertising businesses, Google's Office suite is one of the best on the Web.

Creating documents, spreadsheets, or presentations is as simple as signing up for an account and using Google's menu page to decide what to create. The word processor in Google Docs is the standout app. It sports the familiar spelling and grammar check available in Microsoft's Office suite. Even when online, I found operation seamless. Returning to saved files from Google's server meant I could work from any computer at any time -- a luxury that's not so easily attained with Office. The capability to view and save documents in HTML along with Office-compatible file types is also a welcome addition.

But for as appealing as Google Docs is, the company's Spreadsheet and Presentation apps don't offer anywhere near the kind of customization and power already available in Excel or Powerpoint. Spreadsheets can expand to only 600 rows -- a useless amount for many companies -- and although simple formulas like "sum" are available, the product is lacking more sophisticated functionality to make it useful to business professionals.

Google's Presentation app is fine for users that need to create a quick, simple presentation in a short amount of time, but it lacks the power and sophistication of Powerpoint due to its limited number of transitions and templates.

Google Docs is simple and extremely reliable in a pinch. Its collaboration features, including real-time collaborative editing, cannot be beat. But with a laughable spreadsheet app and a barely useful presentation app, it doesn't take long to find out Google Docs is no replacement for Office.

ThinkFree Online

ThinkFree Office Online is not only one of the most respected online Office apps on the market, it's the best. ThinkFree Online offers all the "must-have" features available in Microsoft Office like a rich toolbar, a ruler bar, and an interface that offers simplicity and delivers the same feel as Word, Excel, or Powerpoint. Creating a document is simple and working with spreadsheets is a treat thanks to the tens of thousands of rows it provides, along with just about any formula that comes to mind. That said, ThinkFree Online doesn't support Pivot Tables, which could prove troublesome to those who rely on them. For everyone else, switching from Excel to ThinkFree's spreadsheet app won't require a learning curve nor a concession.

The main issue plaguing ThinkFree Online is that it suffers from performance issues. Although the company claims its app will pop up as quickly as a desktop application, I found it slightly slower than Office 2008 on my Mac. It also took longer to save documents in ThinkFree Online than any other app evaluated in this round-up. Worse, and perhaps the deal-breaker for some, the company's Presentation app is hardly usable and doesn't compare on any level to Powerpoint. In fact, it's even worse than Google's Presentation app.

Though it suffers from some quirks like slow load times and its presentation app is practically useless, ThinkFree Office Online's word processing and spreadsheet apps make up for it and make the company's online suite the best on the Web.

Zoho Office Suite

If online Office suites were measured solely on the number of apps they provide, Zoho would win without any argument. Aside from the basics -- word processing, spreadsheets, and presentations -- Zoho delivers a full-featured Wiki, note taker, organizer, Web conferencing, and more.

While it's nice to have the option of using Zoho for almost any need, its word processor is outstanding and boasts many of the features offered in ThinkFree's app, as well as Microsoft Office. Even better, the apps load quickly and saving happens in a flash. Simply put, Zoho's Writer word processing app is a fine alternative to Word.

For as useful and appealing as Zoho Writer is, the company's spreadsheets and presentation apps fall flat. Zoho's spreadsheet application offers just 50 rows and fails to provide support for complex formulas, though it does support simple operations like "sum" and "average." In essence, Zoho's spreadsheet application is really only useful when an elementary operation needs to be performed and a calculator isn't readily available. And although Zoho's presentation app allows for sharing with friends and groups throughout the world, it offers just a handful of design options, creating a service that offers little customization and even less appeal.

Zoho is simple. And although that may not be a bad thing for those who don't need all the power Office or even ThinkFree Online offer, it's not suited for anyone who needs to go above and beyond simple operations like writing letters or performing simple mathematical operations.

Zoho on Tuesday is rolling out CloudSQL, a layer of code that allows corporate developers to access their Zoho application data through a number of different dialects of the SQL database access language.

Data stored in Zoho services--so far, only Zoho DB & Reports--can be accessed now not just via APIs, but from standard SQL drivers like JDBC and ODBC. Support for these traditional client/server technologies should make it easier for developers to transition to cloud-based data, should they be moving in that direction.

(Credit: Zoho)

I have not tested the performance of this new middleware layer into Zoho's systems, so I don't know if it's a workable solution. But it is a cool tool for companies that want to test the waters with cloud-based apps and storage.

The service is free for now. Zoho spokespeople say they'll be looking at usage and uptake before they "decide if we need to charge for this." Not exactly a cost structure one can budget for, but it's early days for everyone.

Zoho has written a demo of Zoho's CloudSQL that runs on Google's App Engine.

This charting app is running on Google App engine.

Web application specialist Zoho has joined the growing ranks of companies willing to share detailed information on how well their online services are holding up.

This move toward transparency is increasingly important as potential customers consider relying on such services.

The Zoho Status page shows summary and more detailed information about the availability of its Web-based services for e-mail, word processing, spreadsheets, invoices, meetings, and other applications. Clicking a "more" button shows how the service performed in recent days.

Publishing the performance measurements for online services is catching on as cloud computing grows more serious. Going hand in hand with that is offering service level agreements (SLAs) with specific uptime commitments.

Zoho competes with Google Apps, Yahoo Zimbra, and other services. Meanwhile, Microsoft is bringing Office online. Zoho is a subsidiary of AdventNet.

(Via Mashable)

Zoho now shows details about how well each of its online applications is performing. (Click to enlarge.)

(Credit: Zoho)

ThinkFree, a company that specializes in "next-gen" office productivity solutions, announced Tuesday that it has launched its ThinkFree Netbook solution, which will deliver word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation applications for Netbooks running Intel's Atom chipsets, like the Asus Eee PC or the Acer Aspire One.

According to ThinkFree, its Netbook Edition offers a simplified user interface and compatibility with Microsoft Office 2007 files. Most importantly, the software is optimized for a small screen and features integration with ThinkFree's online service that allows users to collaborate with each other and synchronize documents on-the-go.

The Eee PC has another office productivity suite.

(Credit: Asus)

"In today's digital world, document collaboration and real-time synchronization is a vital part of staying on top of business," Su Jin Kim, ThinkFree's CEO, said in a statement. "Netbook users are demanding applications that are built to not only meet, but make the most of, the unique characteristics of this new device category (and) Netbook OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) can now offer their customers just that by pre-installing a customized, device-tailored version of ThinkFree Netbook Edition."

ThinkFree isn't alone in the market for Netbook office applications. Asus Eee PCs ship with Sun Microsytems' StarOffice (download) installed, and even Open Office (download) can be downloaded onto Netbooks. And as long as users have an Internet connection handy, they can perform office productivity tasks on services like Zoho and Google Docs.

ThinkFree's Netbook Edition is available for Windows XP, Vista, Linux, and Mac OS X and will work fine on 800x480 and 1,024x600 displays. A free trial copy of the software can be downloaded now on the company's site.

Zoho Mail, out of private beta testing, works on the Apple iPhone.

(Credit: Zoho)

Zoho made some significant changes to a core part of its cloud-based application suite Friday: its online mail application now works offline and with Apple's iPhone, and the beta test is now publicly available.

The offline and mobile features are major areas of development for Web-based applications, and cloud computing advocates including Zoho, Yahoo, and Google are racing to build in those features. Offline access helps ameliorate Web-based applications' limitations when no network is available, and mobile access helps fulfill one of the big promised advantages of Web applications: access your documents any time you do have network access.

Offline access, which in Zoho's case is enabled with Google's Gears technology, lets people read and write mail in the browser even when not connected to the network. "Zoho Mail automatically detects your connectivity and switches to online/offline modes seamlessly. While offline, you can respond to your emails as you would normally. When you go back online these emails will be sent out from your outbox," the company said Friday in an announcement.

Easier said than done, perhaps: I just got an indefinite "Loading..." message in both Google Chrome and in Gears-enabled Firefox when trying to access my mail after I shut off my network.

(Update 10:30 a.m. PDT: I thought I'd gone through the offline settings properly, but evidently I hadn't. It does in fact work, mostly, caching messages on my PC and automatically adapting according to whether there's a network. I could write new mails, though Zoho Mail only saves them to the draft folder instead of queuing them up to be sent. And when I tried to reply to an e-mail, I got the error message, "Sorry, this feature is not supported while you are offline!")

And mobile support, while difficult given the primitive state of most mobile devices' Web browsers, can also help when people don't have access to a PC or a Wi-Fi network. "We do plan to support other mobile devices soon," Zoho said. The application worked fine on my iPhone.

Zoho Mail can be accessed with other e-mail clients using the POP (Post Office Protocol) today; the more powerful IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol) support is "coming soon."

It has no storage limits or ads. Users can opt to organize mail with either labels, a la Gmail, or Folders, a la Hotmail and Yahoo Mail. And back-and-forth exchanges can be viewed either with Outlook's conventional style or Gmail's conversation view. Also adopted are some Outlook keyboard shortcuts, such as Control-Enter to send a message. The application worked for me, though I missed Yahoo Mail's drag-and-drop abilities and Gmail's stand-out filtering options.

People who sign up for the e-mail get a "username@zoho.com" e-mail address. And through the AdventNet subsidiary's business offering, customers can use Zoho Mail with their own domain.

Zoho's Web-based e-mail client uses Google's Gears to enable offline access to messages. (Click to enlarge.)

(Credit: CNET News)