Microsoft Access has been the weapon of choice for businesses when creating small applications, there are probably a millions of small programs and databases built in Microsoft Access. If you have developed applications for enterprises in Access you also know the pains associated with it. It is hard to make any changes once the application has been launched (you need to re-release it and what not), applications with multiple users have to be packaged and often an external data storage such as Oracle is needed. Zoho Creator is a web-based alternative to Microsoft Access sharing the concept of creating database applications with relative ease. A Zoho Creator application is free of charge if less than five users are using it. Since Creator is web-based the users of the database will have access to it from anywhere (permissions can of course be set), remember how painful it is to create web-interfaces to databases made in Access? A table in Zoho Creator is basically called a view and consists of several records. It is easy to import data from other applications such as Excel or .csv files into a view. It also works well the other way around, Zoho Creator exports records in csv, pdf or RSS format. It is not uncommon for database administrators to change the same setting on maybe hundreds of records. Zoho Creator has a feature named Bulk-edit where it is easy to change a setting for multiple records. The user-interface in Zoho Creator is in most situations a breeze to use. It is easy to create decent-looking layouts quickly, and the learning-curve is virtually zero if you ever worked in other similar database applications. However creating more advance applications requires a bit more from the developer, naturally. For deal with advanced features Zoho created Deluge scripting, which stands for Data Enriched Language for the Universal Grid Environment... So what Zoho basically mean is that widely spread scripting languages like Python can’t be used in Zoho. This is a huge drawback, since there are hordes of Python developers out there, but not that many Deluge developers. Zoho have tried to solve the problem by launching Developers Zone, which is basically like Elance but for Zoho oriented developers. There is also Zoho Marketplace, which is basically a store with apps that can be installed in your Zoho Creator solution. Most of the applications are business oriented within sales, marketing, IT, HR and Customer Services. Many of the applications are free and I think most small businesses will find everything they need in the Zoho Marketplace.If you have developed a useful application you can upload them to the Zoho Marketplace, and share them with other Creator users. Zoho Creator is in my opinion the only simple alternative to Microsoft Access right now; there will probably be competitors out there in a while as cloud computing catch on. However if you have slim programming skills and just want a fast way to set up a customized web application, Zoho Creator is the way to go.

Sometimes I get overwhelmed by what free cloud services actually offer, Zoho for example isn't only a complete office suite but also includes systems for CRM, project management, reports and database development. Zoho suits a lot of different needs; it can be a personal word processor or a complete IT-solution for a medium sized business. If you ever worked in Microsoft Word you will feel right at home in Zoho Writer. The interface is basically the same and so are most of the features. Zoho Writer is surprisingly feature rich compared to Google Docs. It has better built in functions for printing and working with documents, there is a page preview option and the integration with EchoSign for signature of documents is smooth. Zoho Writer is also integrated with blogging application such as Blogger, WordPress, TypePad and LiveJournal. End-users can post to their blogs directly without having to cut and paste the texts in. If you want to share the documents you are writing it is also possible to use a doc roll, which is basically a blog roll of your documents that can be inserted into any web page (uses HTML). The printing features in Zoho Writer are also rich compared to other cloud office suites. It is possible to view what the page will look like when printed, change the paper size (A4, Letter, Legal and Executive) and margins. Writer is still not as powerful as Microsoft Word when it comes to print, but it does the trick for simple and straight-forward documents. Creating and managing tables in Zoho Writer is also a lot easier than Google Docs. The interface resembles that of Microsoft Word, right click to add or remove additional rows/columns. Zoho Writer has a number of collaboration features. It is easy to share the document privately by adding Contacts from your Zoho Contacts or whole groups. If you want you can share your documents publicly, all documents shared get a nice tiny URL so it is easier to communicate. If I’m going to complain about something in the Zoho application package it's the directory structure and interface. It took a while getting used to, and even after months of use it still confuses. All applications are listed to the left, when clicking an application it will open a directory structure to the immediate right. It is sorted by your own documents, documents you are collaborating on, templates, documents you made public and trash. Clicking "New", creates a new document named untitled. When saving the document you name it, if you want to change the name of the document you can't just click it in the structure and change it. Instead you have to click "Save As" and then rename it. Also the sort by text is way hidden, almost like it barely fitted. Zoho Sheet is Zoho's answer to Microsoft Excel, and it offers really good competition. It has the ability to connect to external data sources easily. For example if you want to import .csv-data or an RSS-feed from a financial site and get real-time updates to your spreadsheet. If you perform certain operations often it easy to create macros in Zoho Sheet, but why is it not possible to create macros in other Zoho applications? Zoho Sheet even includes a VBA-editor so that you can script more advanced operations. [ad#Content Adsense] Creating nice graphs is sort of the point with a spreadsheet program (ok I know that not all of you agree) and it is easy to do in Zoho Sheet. The operation resembles Microsoft Excel where you just highlight the parts of the spreadsheet that you want in your graph and then click "Create graph". Spreadsheets have a tendency to become quite big and extensive in some corporations. When handling larger sheets in Zoho Sheet it is a lot slower than loading the same sheets in Microsoft Excel. For smaller sheets Zoho is however fast enough. Last out in this Zoho basic functionality overview is Zoho Show, an online replacement for Microsoft PowerPoint and other presentation programs. The application is certainly more social than PowerPoint, for example it is possible to use other Zoho users templates and even presentations (if they have selected to share them). As all other Zoho applications, Show is very similar to Microsoft PowerPoint and the presentation program in Open Office. However it has some unique features, such as the possibility to embed HTML-code in your presentations, this means that interactive objects on the web can be easily integrated into the presentation. Zoho Show also has something called Remote, which is handy if you want to show your presentation online and get instant feedback. Participants are invited by e-mail, or can log in to a Zoho-generated URL to watch your presentation. As the presentation goes on they can enter chat messages and ask questions. This is a very neat feature if you work in global teams but also for small businesses that just want to present something to customers around the world. Zoho Writer, Sheet and Show are competent replacements for most current Microsoft Office applications. Zoho's applications deliver what they are supposed to do. Since they look a lot like the familiar Microsoft Office package they are also easy and inexpensive to learn. So how does the basic Zoho applications compare to Google Docs, the main competitor? Imagine that you are going to buy a completely new car, if you order the absolute basic model of the car you want without any extras it will be like running Google Docs. If you order a model with all the extras (navigation, 18 inch wheels etc) it will be like using Zoho.

Microsoft Office is without a doubt the most popular office suite right now, finding an online replacement for it is not easy. Office has every imaginable feature available, but most of us only use a handful depending on what is needed. The benefits of having an online office suite is pretty obvious, it is possible to access your documents from anywhere, you can write on the go and it is possible to use lower spec computers such as netbooks. When it comes to office suites there are three viable online alternatives, Google Docs, Zoho and Microsoft Office Live Workspace. Google Docs is the most basic and slimmed down online office suite with a word processor, spreadsheet program and a presentation program. Zoho is basically an online version of Microsoft Office on steroids with tons of applications and features and Microsoft Office Live Workspace falls somewhere in between the two. Google Docs is the easiest among the tree to get started with. Most people already have a Google-account mainly because of popular Gmail. If you just want a an online application for taking notes Google Docs is the perfect match, however it has a lot more features than is visible at first glance. The Revision History for example shows each saved version of the document, allowing going back to previous versions or just seeing what changed. Google Docs also has a good and straight-forward spell and grammar checker, the option to add comments to a document and decent table features. Another strength with Google Docs is the easy to use collaboration features. Compared to Zoho they seem tiny in comparison but for sharing documents quickly to a small group nothing beats Google Docs. The spreadsheet application in Google Docs is slimmed down compared to Excel or Gnumeric, yet I am not sure what is missing. There are charts, forms (for online surveys) and lots of formulas. For example there are financial and engineering formulas. A pretty neat feature is the ability to easily connect to Google Finance and get import real-time stock quotes using formulas. Creating presentations in Google Docs is easy, as long as you keep your presentation basic. The presentation application is similar to PowerPoint without any animation, effects or on-the fly drawings. For creating a presentation that should be viewed online it is sufficient though. Google Docs can export documents to a number of formats such as PDF, RTF or any of the Microsoft Office formats. If you would like your documents in another office suite format you are out of luck. If you are on a slow connection Google Docs is the way to go, it is way faster than Zoho and Microsoft Office Live. For smaller writing, spreadsheets and presentation tasks Google Docs works just fine, but if you use more advanced features there are better alternatives out there, especially for a small business.