When you buy into the Zoho ecoystem of apps, it's really a big decision, particularly in you are a Zoho One customer.
That's what my company has just done. I've been watching Zoho's progress as a technology journalist, technology implementor and business leader for more than two decades now. And every time I evaluated Zoho software, it just seemed to fall short of what ever best-in-class product I was looking for.
However, more recently I started evaluating Zoho's software again, and each product had improved significantly from my prior evaluations. More so, the integrations are really coming together and as a business owner who has had immense frustrations trying to get the various parts of my software stack to talk to each, this was a really compelling proposition.
So we're going Zoho One.
However, once I made that decision I found I became pretty much addicted to every update I could possibly find about Zoho. I gorged on Zenatta Consulting's Youtube channel but there just wasn't enough content floating around to satisfy my thirst for Zoho knowledge.
So what else is a long-time technology journalist to do, but start a Zoho website?
I mentioned I've followed Zoho for a long time. In the midst of the Web 2.0 boom in the early 2000's, I wrote a blog on the new generation of Web 2.0 based software that became quite popular. I was writing just as Zoho was coming to be, and bringing its Writer and other online productivity applications to market. I even exchanged a few messages with Zoho founder Sridhar Vembu.
I also feel an affinity with the way Zoho has been run. Like Zoho, I've bootstrapped my company for the past couple of decades. And where Sridhar has a passion for bringing opportunity to regional India, I've always run my business from my local area in the outer suburbs of Sydney, where there aren't a lot of opportunities to work in tech or media companies.
So I decided to start Zoknow. The idea of the site is that we want to help you be "in the know" about everything Zoho.
I truly think Zoho is on the precipice of exploding. There is nothing in the software sector like Zoho One, and as I said previously, it's software is now maturing quickly where it is in line with best-in-class products. But no other vendor can offer the breadth and level of integration that Zoho does, not even Microsoft.
However, Zoknow will be fiercely independent. I'm just a Zoho customer. I'm not selling Zoho products or services so my views will be honest and forthright. I want Zoho's software to be better, because I've pretty much bet my business on the Zoho One application suite.
At this point, I'm going to let the site evolve organically. I don't know how often I'll post or what exactly I'm going to post. I imagine it will be a mix of news, opinions and product reviews and analysis. But I have a long history of creating websites that are heavy on community, so if I find the energy to keep this going long-term that's where I'd like to take it.
I hope you come to find Zoknow a useful resource.
