ZOHO OPTIMIZES OFFICE SUITE FOR IPHONE
Zoho, the suite of Web-based productivity tools that's often considered the most formidable challenger to Google Apps' domination in the field, has entered the iPhone app blitzkrieg. It just announced iZoho, a version of its software that's …
Context & Ripple Effects
Zoho enters the summer of 2007 riding momentum: last month it shipped Zoho Notebook, which reviewers found edged Microsoft OneNote and Google Notebook on sheer feature count, and the broader framing holds that Zoho is the most formidable challenger to Google Apps in Web-based productivity.
First-order effects
- iPhone owners can now reach Zoho's Writer, Sheet, Show and Notebook through a browser interface purpose-built for the device rather than squeezed into a desktop layout.
- The move puts Zoho on Apple's handset ahead of Google Apps, converting the iPhone's launch buzz into distribution for a challenger suite that otherwise depends on desktop browsers to win converts.
Second-order effects
- Google Apps now faces pressure to answer with its own iPhone-optimized experience, or cede the first-mover position on the device most associated with Web-native software.
- Other Web office vendors must decide whether to divert engineering toward iPhone-specific builds, since users will increasingly judge suites by how they behave on Apple's screen.
Third-order effects
- If every new device forces a re-run of this race, advantage shifts to suites with open APIs and fast shipping cadences — exactly how Zoho says it assembled iZoho quickly — over larger rivals bound to slower release cycles.
- Productivity software competition migrates from feature lists toward device coverage, making the phone screen a standing battleground between Google and its challengers.
The trend: Web-based office suites are racing to claim each new consumer device as it launches, with agile challengers using their own APIs to out-ship incumbents on fresh hardware.