4 ms·

zenter in trouble?

7 points by darragjm 19y ago

darragjm 19y ago
how is google's new presentation software going to affect the success of zenter? has the zenter team responded to the announcement yet?
- falsestprophet 19y ago
  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 19y ago
    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 19y ago
      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 19y ago
        Google acquired Writely.
        aston 19y ago
        Hence why I ceded that they might buy greatness. They also made an acquisition in this space...
    - schoudha 19y ago
      I disagree with the premise that Google is only good at making product's that its own hackers use (See aston's points below). Nevertheless, even if we assume that this is true, many of Google's employees, including tech leads, produt managers, VPs, do give slide presentations. These employees have huge influence on the products and thus its very likely that Google "Presenations" will be more like Gmail than Google Video.
  - mattculbreth 19y ago
    "Peace and blessings be upon him" First we made Paul into Chuck Norris, and now he's a Prophet. This news.yc was a good move for him.
omouse 19y ago
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.
mattjaynes 19y ago
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.
dawie 19y ago
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.
- SwellJoe 19y ago
  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.
bkmrkr 19y ago
My guess is they will go the way of Kiko, I still think Kiko's product was better than Google Calender ...
brett 19y ago
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.
nickb 19y ago
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.

zenter in trouble?

7 points by darragjm 19y ago

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

falsestprophet 19y ago
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 19y ago
  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 19y ago
    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 19y ago
      Google acquired Writely.
      - aston 19y ago
        Hence why I ceded that they might buy greatness. They also made an acquisition in this space...
  - schoudha 19y ago
    I disagree with the premise that Google is only good at making product's that its own hackers use (See aston's points below). Nevertheless, even if we assume that this is true, many of Google's employees, including tech leads, produt managers, VPs, do give slide presentations. These employees have huge influence on the products and thus its very likely that Google "Presenations" will be more like Gmail than Google Video.
- mattculbreth 19y ago
  "Peace and blessings be upon him" First we made Paul into Chuck Norris, and now he's a Prophet. This news.yc was a good move for him.

omouse 19y ago

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.

mattjaynes 19y ago

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.

dawie 19y ago

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.

SwellJoe 19y ago
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.

bkmrkr 19y ago

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

brett 19y ago

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.

nickb 19y ago

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.