14 DAY TRIAL // Online web application provider Zoho has announced today, August 27, 2009, that website visitors can now sign in and benefit from their large amount of services just by using their Google Apps ID. This comes to append to the website's open gates policy launched last year.
Previously, Zoho users were able to login not only by using their Zoho username and password, but by simply entering their Yahoo! or Google account credentials, to get full access to all of Zoho's services.
In July this year, Google announced an extension of its OpenID Federated Login API to the Google Apps service. According to Raju Vegesna, Zoho spokesperson, in a statement for ReadWriteWeb, it intended to launch a Google Apps login implementation even if Google had not launched the OpenID feature for Google Apps.
Zoho is currently the main competitor to SalesForce, a web-based CRM SaaS company that has seen much of its services implemented and supported in Google Apps. And while the market for hosted enterprise applications seems to tighten up and prepare for a showdown among SalesForce, Zoho and probably even Google Apps itself in the future, Zoho does not seem to acknowledge Google Apps as a rival.
Mr. Vegesna has stated on the company's blog that while Zoho is a competitor with Google Apps in few domains, it still sees Google as a friend. “While we compete with Google on some applications like productivity suite & email, we offer a broad range of business applications which complement Google Apps. [...] With over 1 Million Businesses using Google Apps, the ability for these business' users to sign-in to Zoho using their existing Google Apps credentials gives seamless single sign-on access to all Zoho Applications which complement Google Apps.”
We could understand its reticence in taking on Google since the Mountain View-based company has bigger and bolder wars to fight lately, the OS market coming to mind, and the future battle with Apple and Microsoft. Certainly, a little bug like Zoho can be easily crushed by the "owner of the Internet," as we like to call Google.