Zoho married its Zoho Mail application and Zoho CRM business application, an effort to improve messaging and collaboration for users of the SAAS (software as a service) provider's collaboration and enterprise applications. This integration, is aimed squarely at the Google-Salesforce.com integration of the same nature, making the cloud computing rivalry more interesting.
Zoho July 21 integrated its Zoho Mail application and
Zoho CRM business application, an effort to improve productivity for users of
the software as a service provider's collaboration and enterprise
applications.
The move takes aim at Google and Salesforce.com, which sport
an integration agreement that
lets Salesforce.com CRM users access Google Apps, such as Gmail and Docs directly
from within Salesforce.com CRM apps.
Zoho is hoping to curry a bit of the same cross-collaboration and
enterprise app magic with its new marriage. For $3 per user, per month,
Zoho CRM customers can visit the Setup section in Zoho CRM to see a new
"Zoho Mail Add-on" option. Once the users enable this, they should see
a new
"Emails" tab in Zoho CRM.
From here, users will be able to send and receive all their e-mail
messages without leaving Zoho CRM, which will include a threaded
view of e-mail conversations. Users can also easily switch between
their mail
and their CRM from within the same browser tab.
Resource Library:
For example, users looking for a contact within the CRM
system will see all e-mails they have exchanged with that contact. The
integration goes both ways; Zoho Mail users will also be able to save a contact
directly to the Zoho CRM system by choosing the 'Add to CRM' selection from the 'More
Options' drop-down in Zoho Mail.
Zoho has also enabled the ability for users to compose
and read e-mail from within the Zoho CRM Contacts tab do that users don't have
to go to their e-mail client or even the Zoho CRM Email tab e-mail customers
and contacts.
E-mails will be logged within the respective contacts whether
they were sent from the CRM Contacts Tab, the CRM Emails tab, directly on Zoho
Mail, or even while using another mail client to send e-mail from Zoho Mail.
This eliminates the need for users to CC or BCC contacts with another e-mail
address.
Moreover, Zoho Mail will let users access their Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail and other e-mail services that support POP
through Zoho Mail. Zoho
is also working to enable users to connect with other e-mail accounts via IMAP.
Zoho Director of Marketing Rodrigo Vaca called this Zoho
CRM-Zoho Mail marriage contextual integration.
"It means that what matters is the information, not
what 'product' you use to access it," Vaca
explained in a blog post. "The right information follows you, regardless
what application you happen to be using at the time. It is possible only
because of the tight integration between these two services - something that
would be hard to achieve by two separate companies, even when they really,
really want to work together."
This last comment is a shot across the bows of Google and
Salesforce.com, whose integrations Zoho regards as inferior.
To further put the screws to Salesforce.com, the top CRM
provider in the cloud computing arena, Zoho today also unveiled the
Zwitch to Zoho CRM program to help Salesforce customers migrate to Zoho CRM and
receive six months of free Zoho CRM licenses.
Zoho isn't just picking fights with Google and Salesforce.com.
The company has been aggressively pursuing Microsoft's legacy on-premise
customer base, providing several plug-ins that will enable Microsoft customers
to use Microsoft tools from within Zoho services.
Zoho July 9 released Zoho Plug-in for Microsoft Access, a
free software add-on to let Microsoft users migrate database information housed
on their desktop computers to the Internet cloud.
Zoho July 1
released a new version of its Zoho Projects project management software that
lets
users create a project in Microsoft Project and import it to Zoho Projects.
Messaging & Collaboration 
