Zoho steps up its contextual search game

Zoho on Tuesday rolled out a search feature for its business apps that allow users to aggregate data across a company.

The so-called “actionable search” consolidates a bevy of search boxes specific to each Zoho application—Zoho Mail, Docs, Writer, Sheet etc. Zoho said in a blog post that its results are designed to show the interworking of the business apps and gives you context on relationships between the data on a single page.

As for the actionable part, Zoho said that each result allows a user to open an application from within search results. For instance, an email app doesn’t have to launch to reply to a missive in a search result.

Zoho’s new search is another incremental feature designed to better compete with rivals ranging from Google to Microsoft. Zoho CEO Sridhar Vembu said in a recent interview that the company was staking its claimon contextual relevance between its various applications.

The Zoho universal search box will be integrated into all Zoho Apps.