Business Two Zero

A chronicle of superhuman courage, endurance and dark humour in the face of overwhelming odds - OR - Guerrilla tactics and business ideas in a world of Web 2.0, Software as a Service, and other technology innovations

Note taking - ZOHO Notebook and Microsoft OneNote

by David Terrar @ 11:05 on February 2, 2007.

I’m a big fan of Microsoft OneNote. This is a free form note taking program, that stores information on a 2D page (rather than using some form of database or tree structure, as some of the other note taking programs do). It allows me to hold things in folders, and then in a section/page metaphor, kind of like a ring binder. I can dump notes all over the place, and then pull them together when they need more structure. It can handle graphics, simple drawing, audio and video, and it’s got a good search capability. Although I don’t, you could even use it to collaborate with a team through the network. Almost everything that I write starts as notes in OneNote, and then gets transferred and published in some other place - a Word doc, Powerpoint, blog post, wiki page, etc.

Around the blogs over the last few days I’ve seen several reviews of ZOHO Notebook. This seems to be aimed at the same space. I haven’t had the chance to try the program itself, but here is a good demo by Raju Vegesna of ZOHO:

Over on ZDNet, Marc Orchant started his review by saying:

“Zoho has taken what I consider to be a most important step beyond providing a online office suite experience with the announcement today of Zoho Notebook. If you’re familiar with Microsoft Office OneNote on the Windows platform or any number of “junk drawer” applications on the Mac that allow you to aggregate, organize, and share content, you’ll understand the space into which Zoho’s newest application fits. But while categorizing Zoho Notebook is fairly easy, don’t mistake that for pigeonholing this new web-based application as a me-too copy of what’s already available.”

On his Read/Write Web, Richard McManus said:

“I asked Raju about possible use cases. He told me that a student could use it for compiling research, or enterprises could use it as a project management tool - to gather project documents into one notebook and collaborative on them from within Notebook.”

At AccMan, Dennis Howlett was, like me, concerned that you can’t copy in standard Word and Excel documents. You would have to do this via the ZOHO equivalents. However, his overall summary said:

“People are getting excited about Zoho Notebook and I can see why. It’s the first time I’ve seen Zoho put something out where I’ve thought - yep, that does it for me. It’s dangerous to talk about killer apps because the current speed of innovation means no-one knows what’s around the corner. This is the closest I’ve seen to something where I would readily say to clients - go for it, you’ve everything to gain.”

I can see enormous potential for this product, particular for project collaboration, or when you are working on a joint report. The main drawback for me is that, at the moment, the typical business person doesn’t have an “always on” connection. For many of my applications a Software as a Service approach works well. However, for key applications like CRM or general note taking I need the ability to do that when I’m on the train, plane, or at a venue with no wifi or easy connection to their network. Until that point, I need a hybrid solution for those applications that works off-line as well. However, I think Notebook as part of the full ZOHO office suite makes good sense.