Zoho, the prolific Microsoft wannabe that has already proven it can knock off a web app at the drop of a buzzword, is branching out into middleware. It’s come up with some widgetry – aimed at developers this time, not end users – called CloudSQL that’s supposed to let people interact with their Zoho-stored business data on the cloud through the SQL language.

They should be able to connect the data in the Zoho app with another cloud (SaaS) application or traditional on-premises software.

Customers are supposed to use CloudSQL to blend the data and applications they have on-site with the data and applications they have in the cloud

Zoho thinks it’s a first.

It admits that programmatically accessing data in the cloud isn’t new, but claims developers have to learn another language or access method to be able to interact with it.

According to Zoho marketing director Rodrigo Vaca, “SQL is by far one of the easiest and most efficient ways to query and interact with structured data. That’s why it remains by far one of the most heavily used languages for business applications.”

“There’s no need to reinvent the wheel.”

He describes CloudSQL – “at a high-level” – as a “bridge between the external application and the data stored inside Zoho. It receives the query in SQL, interprets it, delegates queries and aggregates results across the Zoho services.”

Apparently CloudSQL supports all the major SQL dialects, including ANSI, Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server, IBM DB2, MySQL, PostgreSQL and Informix database dialects.

There’s also a JDBC (Java Database Connectivity) driver for it, with an ODBC (Open Database Connectivity) driver on the way.

Zoho is thinking about running up a universal JDBC/ODBC connector (or driver) for all its widgetry. It would save the developer from having to load specific drivers for each Zoho application.

The company figures support for these database connectivity standards means developers don’t have to master web APIs to extend their services with its widgetry. They can just continue using SQL drivers and statements like they do with their premises-based databases using JDBC or ODBC drivers.

So far CloudSQL only works with Zoho Reports, its online reporting and business intelligence service. Other Zoho services, such as Zoho CRM and Zoho Creator, will be similarly enabled.

The CloudSQL middleware has three core components: an SQL interpreter, federation logic and entity mapper.

Eventually Zoho expects CloudSQL’s federation logic to seamlessly query multiple Zoho services and aggregate the results.

To query across other clouds the middleware will have to be extended to handle the SQL interpretation, federation and the interfacing with non-Zoho cloud services.

The company says, “Providing CloudSQL interface for the greater web cloud services is an idea that we would like to pursue in the future. This would really provide an integrated/federated SQL access layer for the greater web cloud, thus being a great productivity enabler for the entire development community on the cloud.”

Oh, yes, Zoho Reports now sports a new HTTP-based API that lets users interact with their data programmatically.

It can be accessed through any application that supports HTTP requests. To start, Zoho is providing wrappers for Java, Python and Google AppEngine. Others will follow.