The Economist recently profiled Sridhar Vembu and called him 'a dangerous man' refering to his thoughts on letting a lot of air out of the corporate IT balloon.
SRIDHAR VEMBU is a dangerous man. If he succeeds, a lot of people will lose a lot of money: software developers, consultants, shareholders and others. The chief executive of AdventNet does not have fraud in mind. Instead, he wants to remove what he calls the “value-pad” from corporate IT in general and business software in particular: all those millions of dollars he thinks are wasted on inefficient production structures, marketing and, not least, proprietary standards. “In the world of corporate IT”, he says, “the low-cost revolution is very much unfinished business.”
The complete article is available here and is a great read. It also talks about Zoho, our affordable business offerings and our philosophy in offering non-advertising based applications - even for free users.
Yet Zoho is no mere clone of Google’s applications. It is the most comprehensive suite of web-based programmes for small businesses, including even services to keep track of a firm’s employees and its customers. What is more, although Mr Vembu does not want to earn money with advertisements, he wants to keep prices for business customers rock-bottom. Zoho’s application for customer relationship management (CRM), for instance, starts at $12 per corporate user per month.
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And at some point firms in the rich world will ask whether they are paying too much. As Mr Vembu puts it: “The India or China price will effectively become the world price.”
I understand the fear. But there is nothing to do but embrace the direction of technology. The maturity of these Web 2.0 technologies would only create an atmosphere for the development of new technologies. By creating efficiencies in one area would cause the organization to focus and invest in strengthening other areas or increase market. Technology should not be feared but exploited!
[...] See the full post at Zoho Blogs [...]
[...] the post here and the article by The Economist [...]
` It is a well-written piece. Also well-deserved recognition for the efforts put in by Sridhar Vembu by a foreign Press for an Indian Boy. The Western Press and Media are quick in recognising the potential of the new technologies and their reach, wherever they come from and whoever is responsible for them, in comparison to Indian Press and Media, which are. I am sorry to say, slow to figure out such technologies, even if they involve a native. Kudos not only to Sridhar Vembu but also to 'The Economist'
Sambamoorthy.I believe companies always had that option using Free Software tools like OpenOffice.org, MrProject, Kexi, LDAP, etc.
A very well deserved recognition :-) I guess you guys are very low profile though. I wonder what other companies (a la CMMi-5 level services company) would have done with your array of products!
Though i appreciate the breakthrough (in so many ways - affordable , feature rich etc ..) achieved by Zoho with all of its apps , i see a fundamental flaw in Zoho's business model - for a lack of better word - evil in nature too !!! Zoho employs so many open source libraries , code , google gadgets etc - smart approach by many means , but where is the contribution to community - limited offering of apps (5 users etc..) is no fair and doesnt suffice. Why dont Zoho come out , give it away all free whenever they use open source libraries ? At the outset agenda might be , Microsoft is closed. What i feel - Zoho is semi-closed and exploits all benefits of open eco-system. Looking forward to your response.
A very well deserved recognition
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