Microsoft calls Zoho the "Fake Office" - Zoho responds with a zinger

http://blogs.zoho.com/general/microsoft-calls-zoho-the-fake-office-so-does-that-mean-bing-is

by suprgeek • 17 years ago

161 55 17 years ago

blogs.zoho.com

txxxxd• 17 years ago

Nice guerrilla marketing: http://fakeoffice.org/

jamesbressi3• 17 years ago

Zoho, are you listening?

I think that landing page needs to change. I mean my comments in the most constructive way and I want to see competition and companies like Zoho compete.

The marketing copy on the landing page right now sounds a tad defensive and like they are trying to prove something. They have NOTHING to prove, because just like they say, "you have most of the familiar functionality found in Microsoft Office, ... other things Microsoft Office doesn't offer, like the ability to easily share and edit documents online... use it for free."

You NEED to make an acronym out of "FAKE Office"... I can't think of one right now, but even Free Ass Kickingly Effective Office would be a start ;)

Run an entire campaign on this like a politician, seriously.

First, the top banner needs to be changed, because the emphasis needs to be more positive "Zoho the Free Ass Kickingly Effective Office that Microsoft doesn't want you to try" (with the f,a,k,e, emphasized some how).

ALSO, you can take Microsoft's quote out of context: They said "we're not seeing any inclination that Zoho or Google or Zimbra or any other of those offering fake Office capabilities can replace [Microsoft Office]," he [Ron Markezich, corporate VP of Microsoft Online] said.

So in the copy, quote them! Microsoft's VP of Microsoft Online said "FAKE Office capabilities can replace [Microsoft Office]."

Make a comparison chart with Office that matches check for check what Zoho offers and then the one-sided Zoho checks for FREE and the ability to share and edit online.

Remove your line of "you have most of the familiar functionality of Microsoft Office".

This is just a start and I would be more than happy to pitch in and help and I'm sure the rest of the community wouldn't mind lending a hand too ;)

markbao• 17 years ago

This is guerilla marketing. Taking what one competitor says and saying "they haven't tried it yet and neither have you" isn't.

Aggressive tactics, but all's fair in love and war.

rajuvegesna3• 17 years ago

Very good points James. Yes, we do plan to improve it. This is just an initial page we put together at the last minute. We are improving it as we speak. Comparison charts, easy-signup, funny cartoons etc are coming including videos...like this one...REAL happy customers using FAKE Office http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zO4I3p7DYuk

jamesbressi3• 17 years ago

+1 for you Zoho!

potatolicious2• 17 years ago

I think MS just made a booboo. I've never heard of Zoho before today, and because of their boneheaded comment now I have! And I've tried their competitor's product to boot.

Given MS's track record in recent years, I think they really need to stop trash talking other people - more often than not they end up eating their words.

thras3• 17 years ago

Microsoft isn't competing with Zoho. They're competing with Google which is competing with Zoho. If they were trying to trash talk, they would have trashed Google docs. Instead, they mentioned Zoho, Google, and Zimbra in order to make Google look like a bit player.

So, you've given Google's competitor's product a try because of what Microsoft said. Maybe Microsoft knows a little about marketing after all...

mooted• 17 years ago

"we're not seeing any inclination that Zoho or Google or Zimbra or any other of those offering fake Office capabilities can replace [Microsoft Office]"

Sounds more like a generic trash talk on everything non-MS Office, than a purposeful marketing move.

sidmitra• 17 years ago

>Maybe Microsoft knows a little about marketing after all...

I am starting to see pattern in their marketing, this plus the windows 7 launch party video, seinfeld ads... these were so bad that they got people talking. It might be an example of latent marketing :-)

billybob3• 17 years ago

Yeah, here's an amusing trash talking example:

Nov 2007: 'Ballmer Calls Android a "Press Release"' http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/11/08/1326234 'Right now they have a press release, we have many, many millions of customers, great software, many hardware devices and they're welcome in our world,' [Ballmer] added."

Oct. 2009: "Big Cellphone Makers Shifting to Android System" http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/26/technology/26android.html 'But now that smartphones are popular, Microsoft’s operating system, Windows Mobile, is foundering. More cellphone makers are turning to the free Android operating system made by Microsoft’s latest nemesis, Google.'

With a history like that, I take every example of trash talking by Ballmer to mean "yikes! those guys are going to kick our butts."

billybob3• 17 years ago

Also - to be fair, in Nov. 2007, Android WAS just a press release. But Google had already made clearly superior search, maps, and email products, and it didn't take a genius to see that they wouldn't create a phone OS unless they could seriously one-up Windows Mobile.

Which they have, by the way. My Android-powered phone is fast, powerful, and sleek. I have hated every Windows Mobile phone I've ever touched - slow, buggy, and crashy are how I'd describe them.

CamperBob• 17 years ago

And don't forget http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5oGaZIKYvo .

Why Ballmer is still employed at any Fortune 500 company, much less running one, is a problem worthy of serious academic study.

jimbokun2• 17 years ago

He had similar things to say about iPhone.

http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2007/04/ballmer-says-i...

"There's no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance," said Ballmer. "It's a $500 subsidized item. They may make a lot of money. But if you actually take a look at the 1.3 billion phones that get sold, I'd prefer to have our software in 60% or 70% or 80% of them, than I would to have 2% or 3%, which is what Apple might get."

The charts here have iPhone handily out-pacing all Windows Mobile units:

http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/09/11/03/canalys_q3_200...

michaelneale• 17 years ago

It is certainly good news for zoho - I would be quite happy if I were them. But as another poster said, ms are being clever in attempting to dilute googles online office mindshare by introducing people to new competitors.

boredguy83• 17 years ago

Why do I have to sign up to use their free document tool?

  0. http://fakeoffice.org/ -> 
  1. click "Try Zoho Now" -> 
  2. A cluttered menu of options -> 
  3. click "Zoho Docs" -> 
  4. see three purchase options & feature list -> 
  5. "Why do I need to see this? I'm not buying anything" ->
  6. click "Free 1GB space" ->
  7, 8, 9??? CREATE ZOHO ACCOUNT!

I want to try your product. Stop making it hard for me to do so.

Seriously, that makes sense if I want to "save" the document I'm going to play with, but I don't understand why I need to sign up for an account to see if I can insert a table into a document and then set different backgrounds for different table elements.

Nor do I understand why there are so many steps between clicking 'try now' and actually being able to 'try now'! If I click "save" I can understand. Theoretically I'd like to be able to open a document too, without having to register, but I understand limiting that to one or two.

The reality is, I already have Office installed. If you want me to try your alternative, you should have barriers as low as possible. I even picked Documents, instead of, say, CRM, because I -knew- I'd be able to test a document without signing up. I was wrong.

potatolicious2• 17 years ago

Agreed. You already sold me on the product - I want to give it a test drive... so why are you hitting me with a wall of text for your gigantic, confusing list of different products? I'm a test driver, not a power user, guide me through this.

thras3• 17 years ago

I got to http://writer.zoho.com/home?serviceurl=%2Findex.do before giving up. I'm not going to sign in just so I can see how the Word Processor works.

boredguy83• 17 years ago

YES! I would LOVE to see the 'layout' of the account page applied to the landing page where they have all their products, but focus on three:

  Letters (Word / Pages)
  Spreadsheet (Excel / Numbers)
  [ROTATE] - [A/B testing, good data]

If I click on any of those three, I should go straight to the application.

coliveira• 17 years ago

From 1. click "Try Zoho Now" I found a "sign up" link. Could be less cluttered, though.

flatline• 17 years ago

Yeah, I just signed in with my google account and got right in. Agreed on the clutter however.

jrp2• 17 years ago

http://writer.zoho.com/editor.im for trying with no sign-in.

thras3• 17 years ago

The comment from a Microsoft VP says "we're not seeing any inclination that Zoho or Google or Zimbra or any other of those offering fake Office capabilities can replace [Microsoft Office]."

Given that he's spot-on right, I'm not sure what the big deal is. The online office apps don't even compete favorably with OpenOffice, much less Microsoft Office.

On the other hand, Microsoft's Office Live offering isn't going anywhere as far as I can tell. They don't understand the importance of simple.

billybob3• 17 years ago

"The online office apps don't even compete favorably with OpenOffice, much less Microsoft Office."

What MS Office does well, these online apps do passably at best.

But what the online apps do well, MS Office doesn't do at all. Like getting the same documents from anywhere you are, collaborating with people, making things publicly viewable with a click, and building a web survey that feeds right into your private spreadsheet.

The online apps just need polish to compete with MS Office. Office has to completely transform and go online to compete with them.

And guess what? If it does that, it has to play catchup with them, both in making things work in the browser, and in mindshare.

greyman2• 17 years ago

>> But what the online apps do well, MS Office doesn't do at all.

Yes, but: 1) This will probably change next year with Office 10 2) It can be partially supplant with online sharing services. For example, I use Office 2000 (still a good product) with Live Mesh, so I can access my files from different locations. I think the collaboration could be achieved this way as well.

Silhouette• 17 years ago

> What MS Office does well, these online apps do passably at best. But what the online apps do well, MS Office doesn't do at all.

Microsoft Office is, arguably, the most successful software line in history. It has remained so despite all the naysayers, despite numerous free replacements with at least respectable basic functionality, despite its relative lack of improvement in features and/or usability in recent years, and despite the fact that the technologies to do all these on-line alternatives have been viable for several years now. Perhaps this tells us something about how much the competitive "advantages" of all these other products are actually worth.

> Like getting the same documents from anywhere you are

I had this really cool idea for that once. I called it a "file server".

> collaborating with people

I had this really cool idea for that once. I called it a "file server". (Or did you mean in real time? Because I haven't seen even a prototype for that so far that would be useful in practice.)

> making things publicly viewable with a click

I had this really cool idea for that once. I called it a "web server".

> building a web survey that feeds right into your private spreadsheet

I didn't have any cool ideas about that one, but about a million other people did, and they all made simple web sites to do it much better than any of the on-line office suites I've seen so far.

> The online apps just need polish to compete with MS Office.

Sure. And so do Notepad and Calc.

Sorry for the cynicism, but I think you are vastly overestimating the significance of these products in the market and their future potential. Even if the idea of an on-line office suite has merit -- and the jury is still very much out on that one -- the execution of the toys available so far isn't even on the same scale as products like MS Office, or various other respectable desktop applications.

pchristensen• 17 years ago

When will big boys learn not to punch down? The little guy can always benefit from picking a fight with the 800lb gorilla, but MSFT has nothing to gain from even acknowledging in their public statements that Zoho exists. Now they've just told everyone listening to them that competitors exist and they're worried enough to discount them.

jimbokun2• 17 years ago

Bill Gates used to always say that the biggest competitors to Microsoft products were the previous versions. Which, in addition to giving him a way to not talk about the competition, had the added benefit of being mostly true.

I wonder if Ballmer is familiar with the way Gates handled this kind of thing. Maybe someone should introduce them.

lssndrdn• 17 years ago

i don't mean to be trolling in the general MS-bashing mood, but this is consistent with a lot of, let's say, grey-area marketing they have done in the past (see internet explorer).

And, you can call bing the fake google, but not "fake search".

Having said that, best of luck to Zoho.

techiferous• 17 years ago

http://www.fakesearch.com

cpr3• 17 years ago

The real problem with Zoho and Google Docs and all the in-browser editors is that their actual "word processing" features are quite weak, and nothing like a replacement for a desktop suite (which MS Live Office is at least close to being.)

Another comment in this discussion admitted of that in passing, pointing out their real strengths are in sharing, etc., but MS's Live Office is also very strong in sharing. In fact, in simultaneous editing, it surpasses even Google Docs.

(You can try out the Live Office at http://skydrive.live.com/acceptpreview.aspx/.documents?aobrp... or at least you could a couple of weeks ago; don't know if they're accepting new previewers.)

I don't mean to bash Google or Zoho and praise MS, but this is a serious issue.

Will anyone step up to the plate with a serious browser-based document editor? Perhaps none of the solutions that rely on the in-browser editing will ever be any good. I've been tempted to write something more serious with Cappucino, but that's a pretty high hill to climb...

greyman2• 17 years ago

I think you are completely right. I had been using both Google Docs and Zoho for some time, but I switched back to old Office 2000 - the desktop version is still more comfortable that in-browser editor, and I can have sharing capabilities with services like Live Mesh or Dropbox.

Next year, Microsoft will come with Office 2010, which will have both desktop client and online app, while Google or Zoho has only the online app.

Even if I would like to stay away from Microsoft, I will prefer Open Office + online sharing service over Zoho or Google Docs.

joe_the_user• 17 years ago

It's amazing to me that despite Word still seeming annoying and bloated to me when I use it, everything else seems utterly inadequate in 2009 (open office, Google Docs, etc). This, despite the fact that in 1984, Word Perfect was clunky but usable.

cpr3• 17 years ago

I think Office has cut off the oxygen supply to this whole market--no one even dares to step up to the plate, if they're interested in the "big win".

citizenparker• 17 years ago

I wish someone would hire the people the team behind Pixlr to create an Office-replacement. Pixlr is the first (and to date, only) web application that has truly felt like working on a native, desktop application to me.

I think if someone were to adopt the Pixlr model and create a lightweight Flash-based solution to this, I think they would have the flexibility to create an experience as rich as Office, and start stealing customers.

However, I'm more and more impressed with the Cappucino apps I'm seeing, so there are clearly many possible solutions to this problem.

cpr3• 17 years ago

It seems that Cappucino will provide the same quality of experience as Flash, while avoiding the serious downsides of the latter (mostly proprietary technology lock-in, but also just general misbehavior compared to platform apps, as Francisco points out so well.).

jurjenh• 17 years ago

Just signed in with my google apps account - a very nice touch. Then I tried Writer, and got the following message at the top of the page in a nice red message box:

  Zoho Writer is not supported yet in Chrome
  Please switch to IE 6.0+ or Firefox 2.0+ version for better experience.

So integration with Google goes as far as using their sign-on system - but not their browser. For what it's worth though, it seems to work OK in Chrome...

cakesy• 17 years ago

These things don't magically happen, and they take time. Time you could spend on adding features, or in including more browser options for users.

I am not sure why I feel the need to explain this, and not on this website.

ErrantX• 17 years ago

Zoho is something of a non-competitor anyway. Their product is ok; but only just. (EDIT: this is my opinion obviously. I tried them for a few months along with Zimbra and Google and settled on Google in the end.)

I think their main focus is on some of the other apps rather than word processing / spreadsheets.

Will this give them some publicity: yes.

Will it make them a player? Unlikely.

This is smart MS moves against Google (as someone else already pointed out)

budwin• 17 years ago

Definitely unprofessional for both companies involved :-/. Zoho could have taken the high ground here, but instead just sank to the same kind petty name calling.

qeorge2• 17 years ago

Zoho's response is cagy, but a bit off base. Zoho Sheet looks and feels a LOT like Excel (I haven't used the other Zoho products). I'd actually say "fake office" is pretty accurate (and a compliment).

jsz0• 17 years ago

I think Microsoft is right for once. I'm very disappointed in Google Docs and Zoho is only slightly more useful to me. If MS Office Online is on par with say Office 2000's feature set it will be way ahead of its online competition and have a huge competitive advantage tying into a fully functional desktop application.

motters• 17 years ago

Them's fightin' words!

maweaver• 17 years ago

I like the fakeoffice.org idea, but purposefully taking the quote out of context and turning

"we're not seeing any inclination that Zoho or Google or Zimbra or any other of those offering fake Office capabilities can replace [Microsoft Office],"

into

"Zoho... fake Office capabilities can replace Microsoft Office"

is a little dishonest, IMO.

Microsoft calls Zoho the "Fake Office" - Zoho responds with a zinger

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