Ok I’ll try to keep this succinct. A lot of us are always moving around and need a good document creation, transport, and sharing solution that emailing Word docs can’t really sustain. Track changes is good but still falls short of the reliability and trackability that some of us need. So we use tools like Google Docs, Basecamp and Zoho. I have really gotten into Zoho recently because I find the word processor interface to be far superior to the others.

It’s always nice when people get back to you

Yesterday the local chapter of the AIGA was hosting a talk by Kit Hinrichs and we wanted to tape the talk and interview him for our Podcast (stay tuned). So I had been collaborating with Leilani on the interview questions via a shared Zoho doc . I’m an early adopter of Zoho @ Twelve Horses, so not everyone is registered and fully on board yet.

So when I went to open the doc from the new Zoho Start dashboard (beta) I kept getting a server error on that file. Other files opened fine, but not the one i needed. [panic...] Remembering an interchange with Aravind a few weeks back where Colin and I Twittered about Zoho and got a response from Aravind, who was tracking the term “zoho,” I sent out a twitter pleading for my document back. (Those of you who think that sending out prayers and desperation to the twitt-ether is pointless READ ON [@mgastanaga and @tjcrawford, I'm looking at YOU!]

This morning I got the following email from Aravind at zoho.com:

Mike : Just saw your tweet - “ok zoho don’t make a fool of me give me my
document back “. Sincere apologies.

Were you able to get back at the document? We would like to help you in solving
this issue. Do mail me more details - like your Zoho user ID, the name of the
document, which Zoho service you were using, the browser name & version etc.

sorry once again for the inconvenience caused.

Regards,
Aravind

I did get my doc back. I went into zoho.com circumventing the Zoho Start and was able to open it. Wheeeeew! Though I seem to be seeing that ctl-Z = all text gone, but the history menu brings it back.

So Twelve Horses raises a glass to our friends @ Zoho.com for their adroit use of social media messaging, multi-modal and cutting-edge business communications, and down right kickass customer service. We could all learn a lot from this exchange!

Below the fold is some additional Q/A with Aravind.

-M

what is zoho built on? I’m guessing it’s open office.

We use OpenOffice in the backend to import/export documents, spreadsheets etc. This interview with Raju, our evangelist, has some details

How many users do you have?

Not sure of the current number but we were around 600K in December ‘07.

How long has Zoho been running?

Zoho’s been there since August-September 2005 (Zoho Writer, Planner & Challenge were the first apps launched).

Where are you based?

Our HQ is in Pleasanton, California. The whole of development happens in Chennai, India.

Who are you guys?

May be this recent article about our CEO will help answer your query.

Where does the name come from?

The name is a play on SOHO - Small Office Home Office. We want to be the IT dept of SMBs

Your web application seems to run a lot better than other web apps, what makes that happen and how will you maintain that as it grows.

We have our own home-grown, grid-based technology. This helps us scale.

How can I backup my Zoho docs so that if there is a real server issue I’m not hosed? There is an offline mode right?

We do run daily back-ups. And our services like Zoho Writer, Sheet, Show, Projects etc. have export options using which contents (a file, a spreadsheet etc) can be exported. That said, easy back-up options for the users have been in our roadmap for a while now. We will soon address this. Also, Zoho Writer has the ‘Go offline’ option which allows you to download upload 50 of your documents to your desktop & work on them offline.

This entry was posted by Mike Henderson on Wednesday, February 27th, 2008 at 4:55 pm and is filed under CRM. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.