Zoho. Zoho. Online To Work We Go. No Office Suite, Got Google Beat. Zoho. Zoho.

Microsoft Office costs a ransom. Google Apps is so "Beta" you might as well program it yourself. A useful, inexpensive web-based productivity suite is perhaps the most intensely desired vaporware in the history of ones and zeros. Well, Adventnet thinks they've got the answer, and they call their online/offline compatible suite Zoho. Slate magazine took a look:

While they don't replicate every function of their Microsoftian counterparts, Zoho's programs are highly evolved by online standards. Zoho Writer, for instance, handles basic graphics and lists with aplomb, incorporates tools for Web-page design and blogging, and offers multiple levels of undo. Like many of the best Web applications, it makes collaboration painless, letting you share documents selectively or post them on the Web with a few clicks. And while the Zoho applications are inaccessible when you're offline, plug-ins for Word and Excel let you save and open documents from your online Zoho file repository. That means it's a snap to use Zoho when you've got a Net connection and Office when you don't.

Can't talk now. Zoho-ing. Read about it here.