
zenter in trouble? - darragjm

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mattjaynes
My guess is that they'll do just fine.

Google's entry into the space gives online presentation tools much more
credibility and that can only help Zenter. It's true that many users that
would have used Zenter will now use Google Presentations, but now the pool of
people using any online presentations tool will be much greater. So it's not a
zero-sum game by any means.

Also, Google has announced that it will be released "soon" which will give
Zenter plenty of motivation to beat them to the punch and launch their
product.

PR, if handled right, can also help Zenter. If they are positioned in the
media as the underdog with a real chance of taking on the Giant. Hopefully
this will play out differently than Kiko. It all depends on how good Zenter is
comparatively. Kiko didn't have much of a chance compared to Google Calendar.

I'm curious to see if Zenter will wait to release until after Google
Presentations, or if they will release before. There will be the temptation to
launch after GPres in order to one-up-them in features before they launch. But
if they do that they will lose much of the great PR that they could get if
they launched theirs first and started developing a strong initial user
community.

Ask yourself, would you be more likely to blog about Zenter if they launched
before GPres, or after. For me it would definitely be before. Hopefully they
will consider the lesson that Odeo learned from launching right after iTunes
did. Odeo has it's own problems, but it certainly destroyed their PR strategy
when they missed their launch window.

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brett
I'm confident they're just fine. For one thing it's a bad sign for Google that
they're resorting to announcing vaporware. They didn't need to pre-announce
Google Calendars because they knew it was going to kick ass once it hit the
market. Strategically coming out with this early means they want to scare
people out of the space and they want to put Microsoft on notice. It does not
necessarily indicate a killer product.

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bkmrkr
My guess is they will go the way of Kiko, I still think Kiko's product was
better than Google Calender ...

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omouse
Zenter needs to start the marketing machine up and post some screenshots and
some links to presentations created with it. There's at least _one_
presentation I've seen created with it.

Just give us a taste of Zenter and we'll be hooked.

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dawie
Zenter is small and agile and they can probably change their product to do
stuff that Google Presentations can't. I think they can do especially well by
integrating into MySpace etc They can do some social stuff that google is not
capable of.

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SwellJoe
They don't need to change it to do stuff that Google Presently can't...I've
seen both, and Zenter kicks Google's ass. They're not even playing in the same
ball park. To be blunt, Google's entry looks like it was built by people who
hate presentation software. I don't blame them for hating presentation
software, as I hate it, too...but if you're building it, you kind of have to
empathize with your users and their needs and desires.

I suspect Google is trying to do the same thing they did with GMail, which was
to rethink what people wanted in email and then get to the root of why they
wanted it rather than slavishly giving users what they asked for (for example,
folders and filters and crap being replaced by search that's fast and works)
and the traditional view being replaced by a threaded view...in both cases, it
simplified the interface by removing the elements that were there for the
convenience of the developer rather than the user. In the case of
presentations, sure PowerPoint is bloated and stupid, but people still want
their presentations to look good.

Now, of course, it's possible that Zenter will get side-tracked by some of the
incredibly clever bits (and there are some scarily clever bits in there) and
forget to launch before five other worthy competitors enter the field. But if
they get out there first (Zoho Show doesn't count...it blows), they'll do
great.

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nickb
Zenter guys, release NOW! Release ASAP! Let the app be out there and let the
people use it. Google's app launch is still some time away so you guys have a
perfect chance to make their app seem outdated and old and ersatz.

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darragjm
how is google's new presentation software going to affect the success of
zenter? has the zenter team responded to the announcement yet?

~~~
falsestprophet
Although Paul Graham (peace and blessings be upon him) says Microsoft is a
decaying carcass and not to be feared, I would be deathly afraid of Google.
However clever the enterprising men of Zenter are and however hungry they are
for the Microsoft carcass, they better run away. Because Google is a pack of
lions and they will eat you. They will eat through Microsoft and Zenter to the
bone.

~~~
pg
They have a healthy respect for Google, but they're not terrified of them.

Remember, Google is best at making what its own hackers use. That's why Gmail
turned out good and Google Video turned out bad. Hackers use calendars, but
they don't like to give slide presentations.

~~~
aston
Hackers don't really need word processing for their day to day jobs, but
Writely's a killer. Also, geeks don't read ads, but it's Google's bread and
butter. I would chalk Google's success up more to great execution (or buying
great execution) than anything else, whether it appears their engineers need
the product or not. The main places Google has failed have been sites where
the network effect is crucial; they don't do so well with community sites. If
Zenter's got some of that secret sauce, then, I'm guessing they'll be fine.
Otherwise, :(

~~~
Elfan
Google acquired Writely.

~~~
aston
Hence why I ceded that they might buy greatness. They also made an acquisition
in this space...

