links // 2008.03.31 08:07:58 [hh]

Gestatten, "Zoho": die Online-Office-Suite

"Zoho" bietet eine beeindruckende Reihe von Office-Anwendungen als Online-Versionen, darunter Textverarbeitung, Tabellenkalkulation, Präsentationssoftware, Notizbuch, Wiki, Organizer, Chat, Groupware/Mail, Projektverwaltung, Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Rechnungsverwaltung, Web-Konferenzen, Datenbanken. Das System unterstützt dabei eine Vielzahl von Sprachen und Datenformate. Von allen Modulen existieren kostenlose Versionen. Das soll sich auch in Zukunft laut dem amerikanischen Hersteller AdventNet nicht ändern.

Fragen und Antworten von Zoho (FAQ in englisch)

1. What is Zoho all about?
Zoho is a suite of online applications (services) that you sign up for and access from our Website. The applications are free for individuals and some have a subscription fee for organizations. Our vision is to provide our customers (individuals, students, educators, non-profits, small and medium sized businesses) with the most comprehensive set of applications available anywhere (breadth); and for those applications to have enough features (depth) to make your user experience worthwhile.

2. Who is behind Zoho?
Zoho is a division of AdventNet Inc. A US-based company that has been creating and selling cutting edge software solutions since 1996. The company has tens of thousands of customers worldwide, is privately held and profitable.

3. What is the main advantage of using Zoho?
Zoho is bringing together a wide range of online applications making it easier for individuals and businesses to manage all their work while dramatically reducing the cost. But being more productive and saving money is just the beginning of using Zoho. As we continue to integrate the various Zoho services and innovate on new ways of getting things done, we hope that you will find working online not only more rewarding, more collaborative, but more enjoyable. You can read some of our blog posts to learn more about some of the advantages of working online. Here are a couple of sample posts: "Offline vs. Online". and "Business at the Margins". a post by Zoho's founder and CEO.
While using Zoho your documents and data are securely stored online on our servers and can be accessed from anywhere. This means as long as you have Internet access you can access your Zoho data from any computer and enjoy a productive and convenient working experience wherever you go without the hassle of bringing your computer with you. In addition, Zoho helps people collaborate on projects and share information with a simple mouse click. For example, in Zoho Writer, there are several ways to share documents in private, make them public or even perform collaborative editing in real time. Zoho also offers a very economical approach to getting your work done. While we offer free editions of all our applications, businesses also have access to our business editions at extremely competitive rates.

4. How do I get started?
You can start by simply clicking on the Zoho service you are interested in and filling in some basic information to set up an account. We ask for your e-mail address, a password and a verification code to prevent spammers from using the services. Once you read and agree to the Terms of Service and Privacy policy you will receive an e-mail asking to verify your account. You can start using the service immediately. Zoho services support single sign on (SSO) across all our applications (Z CRM is the exception and will be added shortly), so once you subscribe to one service, you have access to all the services using the same user name or e-mail address and password.

5. What is Zoho Business?
Zoho Business is both an application and a kind of online "platform" that aggregates a number of Zoho applications into a single dashboard for users to manage the Zoho services they have subscribed to as well as a place to view and access all your documents. It also provides a sharable calendar, supports groups, contacts, e-mail, tasks and a means to add and pay for additional Zoho services and eventually other third party services. One of the main differences between using Z Business vs. the standalone "Personal" edition applications, is that it provides company level subscriptions, an administrator console and a set-up for different office locations. Once an administrator logs in, he/she can add users, locations and pay for the services required with a credit card from our secure online store. You can even replace the Zoho logo with your own company logo, register domain names that belong to your company and have employees access their Zoho Business account using those domain names.

6. Is my data secured?
Many people ask us this question. And rightly so; Zoho has invested alot of time and money to ensure that your information is secure and private. We offer security on multiple levels including the physical, software and people/process levels; In fact your data is more secure than walking around with it on a laptop or even on your corporate desktops.

• Physical: Zoho servers and infrastructure are located in the most secure types of data centers that have multiple levels of restrictions for access including: on-premise security guards, security cameras, biometric limited access systems, and no signage to indicate where the buildings are, bullet proof glass, earthquake ratings, etc.
• Hardware: Zoho employs state of the art firewall protection on multiple levels eliminating the possibility of intrusion from outside attacks
• Logical/software protection: Zoho deploys anti-virus software and scans all access 24 x7 for suspicious traffic and viruses or even inside attacks; All of this is managed and logged for auditing purposes.
• Process: Very few Zoho staff have access to either the physical or logical levels of our infrastructure. Your data is therefore secure from inside access; Zoho performs regular vulnerability testing and is constantly enhancing its security at all levels. All data is backed up on multiple servers in multiple locations on a daily basis. This means that in the worst case, if one data center was compromised, your data could be restored from other locations with minimal disruption. We are also working on adding even more security; for example, you will soon be able to select a "data encryption" option to encrypt your data en route to our servers, so that in the unlikely event of your own computer getting hacked while using Zoho, your documents could be securely encrypted and inaccessible without a "certificate" which generally resides on the server away from your computer.

7. Once I sign up is my personal or company information secure?
Yes. Our privacy policy states: "We assure you that the contents of your Account will not be disclosed to anyone and will not be accessible to employees of AdventNet. Neither do we process the contents of your Account for serving targeted advertisements." Zoho is not in the business of selling advertising nor will it sell your personal information to third parties. In addition, when you pay by credit card for Zoho services, your credit card information is not stored by us, but is securely passed to the credit card companies and in use for that single transaction. Users can also access their personal information to make changes and remove themselves from the system.

8. How much does Zoho cost?
Zoho offers free versions of all its software including our business oriented applications such as CRM. This will never change. You can always have access to our free or "personal editions" Each of our fee-based applications have different pricing models generally charged with a credit card on a monthly basis. Select the links here for each of those services: CRM, Projects, Meeting, Business, Creator. In addition to our standard pricing, we do offer volume based discounts for larger customers and discounts to educational and non-profit organizations. You can request more info by sending an e-mail to sales@zoho.com or info@zoho.com

9. Can I become a partner?
Yes. Zoho has a partner program called ZAPP and we are looking for experienced people from around the world who share a vision of enabling users to use online services to be more productive and untethered from their desktops.

10. Do I still need Microsoft Office?
We like to tell people that it is entirely up to you. While we encourage everyone to work online; sometimes you need offline access or simply cannot work without your usual office tools. Zoho enables the best of both worlds since Zoho Writer, Sheet and Show support all the office formats including .doc, .xls and .ppt you can use both. While working with Zoho online you can take advantage of online collaboration with others and the mobility Zoho provides; while working offline, you can still us your MS Office tools. The good news is, we also have a plug-in (a small application you download from our site), that lets you create, edit and save your documents & spreadsheets directly to Zoho Writer/Sheet from within Microsoft Word/Excel. We also support "offline" mode in Zoho Writer so that you can work in your browser even when you are not connected to the Internet and later synch up with your online version when you are back online.

11. Is Zoho available on my mobile device?
The short answer is yes and no. Some of our applications do work on PDA's and we have created an iPhone version for Zoho Writer, Sheet and Show. Zoho Creator also works on some mobile devices. Stay tuned for more developments for Zoho mobile support shortly.

12. Does Zoho support multiple languages?
Yes. Most of our applications are available in multiple languages. For a full list please check here.

Weitere Informationen: zoho.com

 

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