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At the Office 2.0 Conference today, Web Office vendor Zoho will unveil a new Suite product called Zoho Business. It will be available in two versions – Free and Pro. Both versions will be free until Zoho has sorted out the feature set for Pro over the beta period, expected to last until Q1 2008. At that point the Pro version will have a charge – mooted to be $40/user/year.

Zoho Business is a set of online office applications, similar to Google Apps. It will probably undercut Google Apps in price – at $40/user/year, it would be $10 per user cheaper than Google Apps. Zoho Business will be available in private beta for now, then move into public beta next month. It will go 1.0 during Q1 2008.

As yet the features for the Pro version haven’t been confirmed. But Zoho told Read/WriteWeb that it’ll include additional storage, security, telephone support, additional apps, customization and more control, more flexibility and control in groups, and more. These features will evolve as the Web Office market evolves over the next few months, we were told. continue reading…

Michael Arrington over at TechCrunch caught what could be evidence that Microsoft is prepping some sort of online spreadsheet program, which would probably be a stripped down version of Excel.

Microsoft Developer Tod Hilton posted on his personal blog that he’s moving from Microsoft’s Global Foundation Services to the company’s Excel Services team. And yesterday, he wrote that the product “has tons of potential and will probably be competing with the likes of Google Spreadsheets, DabbleDB, Zoho, and JotSpot Tracker.”

A short while later, Hilton removed that text and updates his post to say that he was removing his “personal opinions.” The implication is that we shouldn’t read too much into what he wrote on the post, it may have just been excitement about moving to a new team. Either Microsoft is planning on developing an online spreadsheet application, or Hilton really thinks they should and wrote his post in a moment of blind enthusiasm.

Obviously there’s not enough information here to determine whether Microsoft is developing online versions of other Office programs such as Word or PowerPoint. But one can dream. While we’re dreaming, let’s imagine that these applications would all be free.

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The big news tonight is that Google has released a premier edition of its Google Apps package (previously known as Google Apps For Your Domain). I’ve been following the Web Office trend for a long time and, like everyone, have been particularly obsessed with Google’s gradual progression towards a Web Office suite. Tonight is another step towards fully challenging Microsoft Office, but there is still a ways to go. More on that in a minute, but first a quick overview of what’s in Google Apps Premier.

The new ’suite’ includes the existing Google Apps tools – Gmail, Google Talk, Google Calendar, Page Creator and Start Page. New to the package is Google Docs & Spreadsheets, a significant edition considering that word processing and spreadsheets are mainstays of Microsoft Office. A comparison between the free edition and premier is here. Also new of note is APIs "to integrate with your existing infrastructure" and ability to integrate with 3rd party applications and services. ‘Best of breed’ web apps is another theme we obsess over here at Read/WriteWeb – so APIs and 3rd party features will go a long way towards making Google Office an attraction for external developers and startups. Google wants to be the center of the Web Office ecosystem, a very wise strategy.

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Google plans to start charging soon for use of its set of web applications, Google Apps for Your Domain. The set of apps includes Gmail, Google Talk, Google Calendar, Google Page Creator, a start page, and will eventually add in the word processing and spreadsheet apps from Google Docs. According to an article in BusinessWeek, the company has been deluged with requests from businesses to use these services, and not just small companies, either.

The original goal of Google Apps for Your Domain was to present simpler service options for small companies that don’t necessarily have the time or resources to pour into setting up more robust enterprise apps, such as a Microsoft Exchange server or Lotus Notes. The package allowed for server administrators to completely customize them under the company’s own branding, making Google Apps look more like the company’s own start page and e-mail. “Organizations can let Google be the experts in delivering high quality email, messaging, and other web-based services while they focus on the needs of their users and their day-to-day business,” said Google VP Dave Girouard when the service package launched last August. continue reading…