Zoho Writer today launched the possibility of opening office documents that you find online in their online editor. This completely cuts out the desktop application. Previously users would have to download the document and then open it in their word processor. To me at least this new way of getting at documents sounds like it is going to be quicker. And if you are using Zoho Writer to make and edit all of your documents then obviously it is best to get your documents straight into Zoho rather than having to upload it later.

How Does It Work

You download a plugin to use in your browser (IE and Firefox) and then you can right click to get the option to open the file in Zoho Writer. The plugin has a nice options window that lets you decide whether you want it opening in a new tab, a new window, or the tab you were in. It works on .doc, .rtf, .odt, or .sxw files. Similar services for their spreadsheet and powerpoint systems are also being released today.

Performance Tests

Of the file formats that work .doc is the most common you see on the web, so I decided to use it for the test. I uploaded a small document of 32 kb to my web server and then I tried to open it via both of the methods. I started with Microsoft Word closed as that is my normal state. Here is the link to the document so that you can submit your findings in terms of times to load in the comments:

• test1.doc - (if you don’t have the Zoho Writer plugin then click here for the Zoho Writer test).

My timings from the time I clicked to the time I could read the document were:

Microsoft Word - 9 seconds.
Zoho Writer - 6 seconds.

Now lets try something a little different. Something a little harder. This time the file is 204 pages long and 960 kb. You can download them using these links:

• test2.doc - (if you don’t have the Zoho Writer plugin then click here for the Zoho Writer test).

I got:

Microsoft Word - 14 seconds.
Zoho Writer - 24 seconds.

So it looks like Zoho Writer is much slower than Microsoft Word with longer documents. Hopefully they can work on the script that they have running their end to try to get this time down. But significantly the time is comparable to using Word, and therefore if you were using Zoho for all your writing this would be a good solution. Since if the time for Word had to include reuploading and importing into Zoho then the direct Zoho import would definately win out.*

Problems For Zoho

Google and Zoho seem to me to now be the two companies most advanced down the Office 2.0 line. But Google already has a lot of people grabbed. And it’s products are getting more and more sticky. The day we see this particular tool appear for Google’s word processor, Writely, then Google could put the link right next to the Word document in the Gmail message. This sort of cornering is not available to Zoho. Obviously using plugins like those they have released you could always right click to get it in Zoho. But it is one more click. We’ll have to wait and see how it works out. Integration often comes at the expense of a free market.

*Note that right now it is not actually possible to directly import the content to your Zoho account using the new tools. But Arvind of Zoho assures me that this is coming soon.