Small Business

Create Business Apps with Zoho Creator 3.0 and Sell Them in Zoho Marketplace

By Rick Broida

Updated on: October 1, 2008 / 2:05 PM EDT / MoneyWatch

Zoho just took the wraps off two interesting items: Zoho Creator 3.0, which lets you build database-oriented apps, and the new Zoho Marketplace, where you can sell them (or just give them away).

Zoho Creator promises drag-and-drop simplicity in building custom applications -- think of it as Microsoft Access-meets-Visual Basic, Web edition. According to Zoho, users have already developed over 100,00 apps. The new stuff in version 3.0 includes custom HTML pages, data mashups, stateless forms, and other stuff I won't pretend to understand.

If you understand it, or you're the enterprising sort, you can leverage the new Zoho Marketplace to sell your Creator creations -- though you may be hard-pressed to compete with the huge volume of free stuff that's there already. (Check out the CRM, project-management, and asset-management apps featured on the home page. Great freebies!)