Zoho Introduces Chat 2.0

Written by Sarah Perez / April 1, 2009 6:00 AM / 9 Comments

Zoho, the web office company that competes with Google's online tools (and does so quite well), has introduced a new feature to their online suite of productivity applications: Zoho Chat 2.0. Built atop the original Zoho Chat platform, this iteration now integrates all the major instant messaging networks. But a multi-protocol IM client is not the big news - it's the fact that Zoho Chat 2.0 is integrated within the majority of the company's applications to allow for real-time collaboration with colleagues.

In Zoho Chat 2.0, you now have the ability to connect with others - both Zoho users and not - on IM networks like Yahoo!, Google Chat, MSN/Windows Live, AIM, ICQ, and any network that supports Jabber. The chat application itself can be launched from within nearly every Zoho online application with the exception of Creator, Share, Invoice, and Database & Reports. But when you look at the list of apps, you can see there are far more that have chat than those that don't. The particular apps that lack this feature are also not generally the types of programs where much collaboration is needed...if any at all.

The new Zoho Chat 2.0 is no dumbed-down client. It offers most of the features that you have come to expect from your IM desktop applications. You can send files, record your chat history, customize your theme, and more - just like regular IM apps allow. It does a few cool tricks, too. For example, you can type in a new event in the chat bar at the bottom of Zoho Calendar to create a new appointment on the fly. In Zoho Meeting, you can launch desktop sharing with others from within the IM application. (Windows only for now.)

The chat tool is also able to send you notifications from activities that take place within Zoho itself, including document sharing notifications, unread chat messages and more - definitely a handy feature. Future releases for chat include plans to introduce even more IM networks, most notably Skype.

This release represents a major upgrade of the chat application in Zoho. Current Zoho users can try Chat 2.0 here as of today: chat.zoho.com.

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Bundle this as an API or a service which other companies can integrate into their products - and you'll have an extremely viable business model.

Amazes me that meebo didnt do this years ago ......

Posted by: Tom | April 1, 2009 12:51 AM

Thanks for the tip on chat.zoho. Their online document writer program (competes with google docs) looks superior to me. Google docs was originally set up to create online docs, not for the printing of hard copies. I notice that zoho has easy to find header and footer features. Very nice. Just signed up for an account with zoho.

Posted by: jjray | April 1, 2009 6:27 AM

Wow, this is great. I am setting it up now and testing. I had been using RadiusIM

Posted by: Jim | April 1, 2009 6:39 AM

Zoho products are really nice.
Byt there seem to be a problem with MSN on their chat app. I keep getting disconnected.
I'm sure they'll fix this quick tho.

Posted by: Niespika | April 1, 2009 10:13 AM

Looks cool, not really sure why it is so much better then Google or any other chat.

Posted by: homepage | April 2, 2009 12:26 PM

That's cool, but I also like http://batchchat.blogspot.com It is a single file you can download and drop in a shared directory at work. Then everyone clicks it and they are instantly in a chat room. But, it can't do all the things zoho can do. At home I mostly just use yahoo cause that is what everyone else has who I talk to. Mahh... I don't need this new thing.

Posted by: Matt | April 2, 2009 9:16 PM