Zoho has launched its project management baby called ZohoProject. I got a couple of emails yesterday (from Arvind & Sriram at their Chennai office) breaking the news to me. And their emails conveyed a sense of excitement and anticipation. The tone of their emails tell me, that this is by far the most ambitious of Zoho’s products. And something that Zoho’s top management is pinning a lot of hope on. Why so?

Here’s what I think– Zoho (till now) has got wide acclaim for its weboffice products. But all its other products are free for use (as far as I can remember) and hence, more of technology demonstrators than commercial offerings. With ZohoProject, this is set to change. For, apart from a basic free version, ZohoProject is charged for commercial usage. This is a market where customers are paying real money to use competing products (like BaseCamp), unlike online word processors, spreadsheets etc, which are all free to use. In that sense, this is also a moment of reckoning for Zoho’s team. It is one thing to wow people with ‘proof of concept’ free products; it is a totally different ballgame to get people to actually pay for those products and make a commercial success out of it.

So how does ZohoProject look like. I am a very active user of BaseCamp, and hence comparisons are inevitable. My first impression is that ZohoProject looks different from BaseCamp. It has the easy simplicity that you would expect of world class Web2.0 products but it looks more feature heavy than BaseCamp. BaseCamp was built around the philosophy of ‘building less and less’ but ZohoProject seems to be oriented differently. Proof of this lies in features like meeting schedulers and Gantt charts. This factor by itself could be crucial, for BaseCamp’s ‘project mgmt process design’ is considered by many, to be the REAL reason behind its staggering success. Zoho’s usage plans ($5 p.m. for 3 projects) are priced lower than BaseCamp ($12 p.m. for 3 projects) and could actually get some cost conscious customers to switch besides netting some first timers. Like CampFire (the chat in BaseCamp), Zoho has ZohoChat which can be integrated into ZohoProjects (coming soon).

In my opinion, ZohoProject initially will not find it easy. For it is up against a competitor that not only has the first mover advantage; you must remember that 37Signals is undoubtedly a poster child of the Web2.0 era, and hence a ‘sentimental favourite‘.

On the other hand, there is a ‘Bazooka’ that Zoho has up its sleeves. Guess what? It’s the vast array of solid weboffice products like ZohoWriter, ZohoSheet etc. that have already proven their worth. Once Zoho is able to provide a single sign on to its entire product range (planned pretty soon) and integrate Writer, Sheet etc into ZohoProjects, that will add decisive firepower to its arsenal. And that is when the real battle will begin. Watch this space for more action in future!