Ian Lewis' Blog

I came across this website called Zoho which has a lot of interesting web apps like Google's web apps. Google has Google docs, spreadsheets, and presentations. Zoho has docs, spreadsheets, and presentations. Google has Google notebook. Zoho has a notebook. Google has gmail. Zoho has Zoho mail. Google has... well you get the idea.

All that stuff is well and good but the thing that caught my eye was the Zoho creator and the Zoho DB & Reports. Granted, Google has it's own things like a neat little chart api(on the right) but nothing like Zoho's DB and integrated report creator that I know of. Google Base seems built for an entirely different purpose. Granted that the Zoho DB and Reports are not going to rival any enterprise reporting software but would provide you with an easy to use reporting tool for small to <the step above small (not medium)> sized databases.

Anyway, the possibilities seemed interesting for an online set of integrated applications like Zoho has. Especially the DB, App creator, and Spreadsheets but I'm sure you could think of powerful ways to integrate the other things like TODO and e-mail. The problem is that Zoho hasn't integrated these (yet?). The Zoho creator, though billed as a way to "Create Database Applications", is not integrated with the DB. When you create an app, and with it, a form and a view in the creator, the database and tables don't show up in the database app. *scratches head* Isn't integrating these two obvious? It would be cool to have an application with a database that you could then load in Zoho Database and create reports etc. But alas, the creator is a stand alone.

The integration issues combined with bugs in the creator when saving data, when saving text other than english, and when accessing using a Japanese phone, all are pretty much show-stoppers for me using it. It seems like it's so close, but missing some critical pieces. They may be adhering to the release early, release often philosophy and they are definitely sticking to the "release early" part. I just hope they stick to the "release often" part.