Several of my favorite Firefox extensions did not make it to 3.0 for compatibility reasons, but I found functional equivalents for almost all.  Amongst the (temporary)  losses is  Zoho QuickRead, being replaced by OpenITOnline (The Zoho Team tells me QuickRead will be FF3 compatible in a few days The FF3 compatible Zoho QuickRead update is now available).

OpenITOnline is a handy extension that allows you to read documents online without the need to first download, then open them in the relevant Office applications.  The file formats currently handled are:

• Documents (*.doc, *.rtf, *.odt, *.sxw)
• Spreadsheets (*.xls, *.csv, *.ods, *.sxc)
• Presentations (*.ppt, *.pps, *.odp, *.sxi)
• Images (*.jpg, *.gif,*.png)

There’s an easy guided setup, where I changed the default Zoho Viewer to the relevant “active” services, i.e. Zoho Writer, Sheet and Show.  OpenITOnline also supports Google Docs and ThinkFree.

My old-style del.icio.us extension was replaced by the functionally richer new one.  The PayPal Plugin became a casualty, just days after I had discovered it.

The upgrade itself was anything but smooth sailing, and I’m not referring to the initial download fiasco.  The new Firefox appeared to work fine on the Vista PC, but exhibited strange behavior on two XP machines.

It simply did not “remember” the settings for two key extensions: every single time I started Firefox I got flooded by pop-up windows to configure Gmail Manager (one window for each account) and had to go through the hoops of setting up Foxmarks. For a while I thought the extensions were to blame, or perhaps a strange interaction with some of the new extensions - once you’re on the wrong track, you can spend hours uninstalling/ reinstalling them in various sequences.  But then I noticed some of my default settings were gone, homepage reset, cookie handling and history tracking all changed.  Weirdest of all was the fact that the “OK” button did not work on any configuration/setup screen.

So now I knew something was wrong with Firefox itself - to cut a long story short, I could fix one of the laptops by some magic sequence of uninstalling/reinstalling everything a few times, but the other one was hopeless.  I had to resort to brute force: uninstall Firefox, wipe out all related directories (those ugly documents etc.. \user\ local data\whatever paths), then System Restore to the day before the Firefox upgrade, then install everything again, followed buy repeated Windows and McAfee updates that the system forgot due to the Restore.  It was ugly.

Now Firefox 3 (almost) works, except that the “Use my choice for all cookies from this site” button does not seem to do anything. (Update: It’s damn frustrating having to hit the same button a zillion times!)

I lost about half a day, and more importantly at a time I really couldn’t afford it, had more urgent things to do.  Not the first time, and I’m afraid not the last one either.  But this time I’ve decided to do something about it: I’m presenting a virtual invoice to Mozilla, for the productive time lost.

Of course this invoice won’t ever be paid.. but I already feel better. Every time a software company hijacks my productive time, I will create a Virtual Invoice.  (I already have another one in the queue, for Microsoft… coming soon).

Tags: ff3, firefox, firefox 3.0, foxmarks, gmail manager, google docs, Mozilla, openitonline, thinkfree, virtualinvoice, zoho, zoho invoice

This is a speculative post.   As it is widely known, JotSpot, a very user-friendly wiki and application-platform-wannabe was acquired by Google in October 2006, only to be closed for new users for a long time. Existing users could continue to access their information free.

There was a lot of speculation as to when it would re-surface and in what shape.  I certainly liked the wiki before they “disappeared”, and was hoping The Goog would take the opportunity to do more than just re-label it and make it more scalable:

I hope that means they rethought everything and integrated JotSpot well into a number of offerings.

• It could provide for much better document management than the current Docs &­ Spreadsheets UI. 
• It overlaps with Page Creator, also with the simplified version found in Google Groups - in fact Groups which is no longer just email lists but a rudimentary collaboration platform and JotSpot could very well be merged / integrated.
• Finally JotSpot tried to provide primitive applications (spreadsheet, calendar..etc) all of which have a better Google counterpart, so one would hope they will be replaced, too.

Perhaps we’re getting close to the re-emergence of JotSpot (yes, I know it won’t be called GSpot, but why not have some fun?). Obviously this is the speculative part, but several users report that JotSpot wikis disappear from the net.  Users are understandably getting excited:

Is it over? Just like this? Without notice?

I just finished a major rework on the site. And 4 hours after it:
boom, it disappeared.

Any help?
Where is all the data gone?

The main jot.com page displays a Network Solutions domain capture page. 

I can still access www.jot.com, which displays the standard notification about the Google transaction, and, more importantly I can get into my jot account using the direct URL:  account.jot.com.  I am using OpenDNS.  Perhaps the difference is a matter of DNS propagation, and they are changing in preparation of the Google Wiki launch?

My previous coverage:

• JotSpot Google Deal - Who Wins, Why it’s Big:First Thoughts 
• Losers of the Google / JotSpot Deal
• JotSpot…Gspot … Google Wiki

(Hat tip: Isaac Garcia, CEO of Central Desktop)

Update (2/6):  Mashable list 14 of what they call Online Spreadsheet Applications (clearly, not all are) and surprise, surprise, JotSpot is one of them.  That’s a joke. As much as Iiked JotSpot as a wiki, it failed to become an application platform, and it certainly isn’t (hasn’t been) a spreadsheet.  Like I wrote before:

Just because a page looks like an application, it does not mean it really is. Try to import an Excel spreadsheet into a Jot Spreadsheet page, you’ll get a warning that it does not import formulas. Well, I’m sorry, but what else is there in a spreadsheet but formulas? The previous name, Tracker was fair: it’s a table where you track lists, but not a spreadsheet. (more)

But whatever we think of the former JotSpot Tracker capabilities, it’s hard to see it left intact once Google releases what they turned JotSpot into.   Google themselves have a much better online spreadsheet, I certainly hope for their sake that they will integrate their apps with JotSpot, and kill off the overlap.

(FYI: The real online spreadsheets out of Mashable’s 14 are Google , Zoho, EditGrid, ThinkFree.  )

Tags: Collaboration, editgrid, Google, google wiki, jot, Jotspot, thinkfree, wikis, zoho

There’s a new online Office player in town: Sabeer Bhatia, co-founder of Hotmail, the web-mail service that perfected viral marketing and got acquired by Microsoft for $400 million, unveiled his free web-office suite yesterday. It does not look at Google, Zoho or ThinkFree, it aims at Microsoft directly:

“We are just a few years away from the end of the shrink-wrapped software business. By 2010, people will not be buying software,” Mr Bhatia said. “This is a significant challenge to a proportion of Microsoft’s revenues.”

So be it - I am a certified web-app fanboy. I’m still waiting for my trial account (and wonder if I will ever get it after this post) , so I can’t comment on the applications themselves, but I think Mr. Bhatia’s choice of a name is rather tasteless: Live Documents. What’s wrong with that? Nothing.. except the close resemblance to Microsoft’s Windows Live brand. I only have “conspiracy theories” here:

• Live Documents is a shameless rip-off of the MS brand, Mr. Bhatia is literally biting the hand that fed him and indirectly funded this company.
• He is riding on Microsoft’s coat-tails: his application is (supposedly) very similar to MS Office 2007, he offers a plug-in to the MS products, uses the MS Office logo quite liberally throughout his site, people know his background with MS - all this creates the impression that his products is somehow jointly developed with Microsoft. (?) While this may help gaining traction initially, I think confusing customers is a very-very bad policy. (But what do I know, I haven’s sold a business for $400M)
• Finally, the most far-fetched speculation: this is indeed Microsoft’s secret weapon, named appropriately so it fits easily after it’s absorbed in a $billion+ deal.

I can’t wait to hear from Microsoft… Don? Cliff? Chris? Anyone?

Update (11/23): Dan Farber on ZDNEt came to the same conclusions - literally.

Update #2: As much as I don’t like the Live copycat, I have to admit calling it “service plus software” is a smart play on Microsoft’s “software plus service“, indicating the shift in priorities.

Related stories: Times Online, Techspot, Macworld UK, PC Advisor, Digital Inspiration, Between the Lines, /Message, Rough Type , deal architect, Zoho Blogs, TECH.BLORGE.com, Read/WriteWeb, TechCrunch, Betaflow.

Tags: brands, Google, hotmail, live documents, marketing, microsoft, thinkfree, windows live, zoho

Microsoft laid out its web-based strategy at their recent annual meeting with financial analysts. Pressed by first of all Google, but even smaller players like Zoho and ThinkFree, Microsoft announced they will add similar services to their Office products, first of all Word and Excel.

“We’re not moving toward a world of thin computing,” said CEO Steve Ballmer, referring to systems in which simple processing takes place on a PC, but more complex processing is moved to a centralized computer through a network connection. “We’re moving toward a world of software plus services.”

A few days later Microsoft’s half-hearted announcement (leak?) about giving away free, ad-supported versions of its baby-office, MS Works 9 sparked speculation if this would in fact turn out to be a Software plus Service offering.

Let me reveal a secret: I’ve been using Microsoft’s “software plus services” for years - long before the term was coined. Microsoft Money, the product I was forced to switch to when my bank abandoned Quicken support 7 years ago is a classic example of software plus services. The client software came with a browser-like UI, smoothly connecting online services into the basics ran on my PC. In fact switching between screens I often did not realize whether I was working offline or online. Isn’t that what “software plus services” is all about?

Money was a latecomer to the personal financial management scene, clearly dominated by Intuit’s Quicken, and in the first few years it got better and better … perhaps Microsoft’s intention was to kill Intuit after they could not buy it. When it didn’t happen, they must have lost interest - the annual Money upgrades brought less and less new features or even bug fixes, and smart users started to skip releases between upgrades. Then trouble started left and right: weird things happened to my accounts beyond my control. Categorization? I’ve long given up on it, most of my downloaded data is associated with junk categories. The real bad part: data changed in existing accounts, very old transactions downloaded again into already reconciled months..etc. This is my bank account, my money we’re talking about! The very data I meticulously took care of while in my possession now got randomly changed. The only way to be really sure I have the right balances was (is) to go and verify them at the individual bank or broker sites.

But none of this compares to the total ignorance Microsoft showed when they “upgraded” Online Banking on the 19th of July. There was no prior warning, or an option to upgrade at a later time when I logged on, I was simply notified that an upgrade *had taken place*, and that I no longer have access to my online accounts until I do a bunch of house-cleaning:

In order to update successfully, you will need to disable the existing online services for some of your accounts, set up those accounts again so that they will use the updated service, and then merge the old and new accounts.

Of course it’s not that simple, first I had to process all pending downloaded transactions, then back-up Money, then proceed with the task above. Oh, and the poison pill: merging accounts. I had the misfortune of doing it at a previous Money upgrade, and merge it didn’t… I ended up with zillions of duplicate entries to be cleaned manually. But I had no choice… I wanted to make a payment, and Microsoft locked me out of my accounts - so I started laboring away, around midnight. This time (unlike many) I was actually lucky: after about two hours, I was all set, the merges worked this time, and I was ready to make the payment - the 2-minute transaction I started 2 hours earlier.

(Update: Telling quote from a Microsoft employee:

This past weekend I got the most horrible and scary warning from Money. Just reading the instructions on how to keep using Money with Online Banking is enough to make this computer professional run screaming from my office. The instructions are 24 freaking pages!!! longer than the manual for the product. I seriously almost went to the “Add / Remove Programs” Control Panel to fix the problem.)

Now, if you’re a regular reader, you’ve probably noticed my anti-Microsoft leaning, and I don’t deny it: we all (well except Mac users) share the frustration of failed updates, the pleasure of patching the patches after Black Tuesdays - what is there to like? But none of that is comparable to a software company ignorantly cutting off their users’ access to their own money, (and I don’t mean *MS Money*) and not even feel the need to apologize. It’s the absolute Cardinal Sin. And now this company wants me to put my trust in their services?

I’d much rather trust Wesabe with my money matters - their user groups are lively, full of advice, the CEO himself participates, in fact he is taking user calls 7 days a week. The full truth is, I have not switched yet, as they lack in functionality vs. Money, but I can’t wait….

Back to the title of this post - what’s the component Microsoft does not have to offer Software plus Service? It’s Customer Focus. It’s simply not in their DNA. It will be hard to deliver *Service* when your customers don’t trust you.

Update#2: Omar Shahine, a Microsoft employee responded - it’s worth reading in full, in fact I’ve just suscribed to his blog. I’m just quoting a few excerpts:

I absolutely empathize with this post on Software + Services by Zoli. As a long time user of Microsoft Money, I am this close to outsourcing the software part to Wesabe…

Now, I don’t agree that Microsoft lacks Customer Focus. That’s saying that all 70,000 employees lack customer focus…

I certainly don’t mean to imply that all 70,000 employees lack customer focus. They may all have the best intentions, it’s the end result that counts, the company’s interaction (or lack of) with Customers, and that’s often through products.
Money issue aside, I think it we add up the time spent with bungled patches, rebuilding Outlook profiles..etc, we (computer users) ALL lost days of our lives to Microsoft.
That’s bad enough, but can mostly be attributed to unintentional technical glitches. The Money Online Update was “Crossing the Rubicon”: Somebody in Microsoft had to make a deliberate decision that it was OK to cut off customers access to their financials without first telling them, giving them options, or even apologizing after the fact. That makes the *company* blatantly ignorant - despite the best intentions of those 70K employees.

Update #3: Further evidence of Customer Focus, the Wesabe way. I suppose they did not intend to pile on, but their comments got held for moderation, so they did not see each other’s.

And in perfect timing, here’s an article on Customer service 2.0, the Zoho way. The two stories they link to are worth reading - somewhat similar to what I’ve talked about here. Beliefs are important - but in our materialistic world, there is always the “What’s in it for them?” question. Well, it *pays* to focus on your customers. It may well be Zoho’s key differentiator, why users stick with them, instead of the default Goo-rilla.
It certainly paid another company, Atlassian which grew to over $20M in revenue without a sales force. “Support is Sales for us” - they claim (PDF), and the numbers back them up.

Update (8/8): Wow, interesting timing: Today Microsoft released Microsoft Money Plus, the 2008 version of the Money products. It comes in four editions: editions: Essentials, Deluxe, Premium, and Home & Business. Well, almost. Microsoft offers a nice comparison chart, which neglects to mention a small detail, available only at the footnotes:

* Important note – Microsoft Money Essentials will not be able to open previous Money or Quicken files. If you are upgrading from a previous version of Money or Quicken, Money Plus Deluxe may be the right solution for you.

Not opening Quicken … well, it’s their decision. But not opening data from their very own previous releases? And this is hidden in the small print?

I rest my case.

Tags: atlassian, Customer Focus, Customer Service, Customer support, Google, microsoft, Microsoft Money, Microsoft Works, MS Money, Online Banking, SaaS, software as a service, Software plus Service, thinkfree, Wesabe, zoho

24SevenOffice, the European SaaS provider of an integrated, All-In-One system for small businesses may be in acquisition talks with a major US vendor. The news went almost unnoticed, partly because it leaked just before Christmas, partly because the company is largely unknown outside a few European countries - not for long if a deal comes through.

I covered 24SevenOffice, a very promising SaaS provider for the SMB (SME) market several times. Their system is modular but integrated with a breath of functionality I simply haven’t seen elsewhere: Accounting, CRM (Contacts, Lead Mgt, SFA), ERP (Supply Chain, Orders, Products, Inventory), Communication, Group Scheduling, HR, Project Management, Publishing, Intranet. Essentially a NetSuite+Communication and Collaboration.

About the only thing I did not like was the lack of availability for US customers - this might change soon. The news release and blog post mentions three names: Salesforce.com, WebEx and Google, but adds a somewhat cloudy remark: “the companies here are only examples of what the rumors have outlined.” It does not explicitly confirm one of these specific companies as the potential buyer. I should also add that while I had in the past been in touch with Management, at this time I have no information whatsoever from the company, so the ideas below are purely my speculation.

Salesforce.com as suitor: A well-integrated All-In-One product would come handy to Salesforce.com which could dramatically expand their customer base this way. However, they’ve gone a long way in the other direction, trying to become a platform and extending their reach via the ecosystem built around the AppExchange. Acquiring 24SevenOffice would be a huge about-face for Marc Benioff, and essentially would mean admitting that archrival Zach Nelson of NetSuite was right all this time about the superiority of the integrated All-In-One approach.

WebEx: Their original market, the web conferencing space is being commoditized, they clearly are looking for more lucrative markets, as evidenced by the recently launched WebEx Connect (their “AppExchange”). I haven’t heard about much activity since the announcement - certainly owning a product like 24SevenOffice (btw., it really should be called 24SevenBusiness) would allow WebEx a powerful entry into the SMB applications market.

Google: No way, you might say. Google and business process / transaction oriented software are lightyears apart - at least today.

Yet unlikely as it sounds the deal would make perfect sense. Google clearly aspires to be a significant player in the enterprise space, and the SMB market is a good stepping stone, in fact more than that, a lucrative market in itself. Bits and pieces in Google’s growing arsenal: Apps for Your Domain, JotSpot, Docs and Sheets …recently there was some speculation that Google might jump into another acquisition (Thinkfree? Zoho?) to be able to offer a more tightly integrated Office. Well, why stop at “Office”, why not go for a complete business solution, offering both the business/transactional system as well as an online office, complemented by a wiki? Such an offering combined with Google’s robust infrastructure could very well be the killer package for the SMB space catapulting Google to the position of dominant small business system provider. Who’d benefit from such a deal? Google, millions of small businesses, and of course 24SevenOffice.

I admit I would feel somewhat sorry for 24SevenOfice though, as I clearly think they could have a shot of becoming a billion-dollar business on their own - the next NetSuite. Either way, if they make it to the US market this year, they’ll likely see explosive growth. When they are a well -known brand, remember, you discovered them here.

Tags: 24sevenoffice, all-in-one, crm, Enterprise Software, erp, Google, netsuite, office 2.0, On-Demand, SaaS, salesforce.com, small Business, smb, sme, thinkfree, webex, zoho