So, what does it mean for Zoho?
Sridhar February 22, 2007 09: 03 am
Now that Google has announced its gameplan for an online Office suite targeting businesses, what does it mean for Zoho? As a TechCrunch commenter remarked “looks like poor old Zoho just got thrown a curveball”. Well, it is not like we were not facing an “insurmountable” force already (does the name Microsoft ring a bell?). Our business plan is not based on us beating Microsoft or Google, it is based on serving customers well enough to earn a profitable share of the market. Business is not superbowl, though it often appears that way in a 24×7 news cycle. It is perfectly possible for a smaller company to offer a compelling product to customers and earn a perfectly good living, without “winning” the market. And having a profitable business helps us invest in R&D to bring more innovations to market, keeping the pot boiling so to speak. After all, building a profitable business in AdventNet is what allowed us to invest in the R&D to create Zoho - and made this conversation possible! And if you look at the markets AdventNet serves, we have tens of thousands of happy business customers, but we also face companies much larger than us.
As of today, it is Zoho that has a broader, more polished suite of offerings than anyone else in the market - as the overwhelming response to Zoho Notebook demonstrated. We are sure Google’s offerings will get better over time, but we are sure we will keep moving too. And services like Zoho CRM, Zoho Projects and Zoho Creator help us differentiate our offerings even more, helping us in the crucial task of earning a profitable share of the market. We are by no means finished - in March we have a significant new offering coming, and even more in the months ahead.
Let’s not forget that Google can and does really expand the market for all of us in the online productivity applications space. This is the famous “anchor tenant” effect in shopping malls - having the presence of a large, recognized retail player helps attract the crowd to help the smaller players. We have already seen how our busiest days are when Google makes an announcement.
One assurance we can give customers: we have a strong, profitable business, focused on delivering real value to our users. We have a ten year track record to prove it. And we try harder.
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Excellent post Sridhar! I appreciate your “a rising tide floats all boats” attitude. The migration to the cloud is the real issue facing businesses and individuals who have been taught that PC-based data storage is inherently “better” or “safer”. There is plenty of room in this emerging market for differentiated offerings and Zoho has established a solid position with your ever-expanding list of offerings.
It seems like every blog that mentions a Google announcement, also mentions that your services are better. That’s got to be a good sign.
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[…] First and foremost, it means that Google is dead serious about Office 2.0. Among the plethora of services currently offered by the company, very few have commercial versions today, and most never will. Asking people to pay for a service is a lot harder than giving it away for free, for it requires a complete billing infrastructure, alongside human beings ready to pick up the phone when paying customers need some help. More than any other company in the space, Google has been very modest in rolling out new commercial offerings, and did so only when it could demonstrate an ironclad business model for it. Google Apps is one of them, and it serves as a fantastic validation for the Office 2.0 movement. And this validation should only help the other players in the space, as the good Zoho folks justly pointed out on their blog today. […]
Good post! As you said there will always be room for competition as long as you support your customers and keep them happy. I can’t believe that either Google or Microsoft will be able to serve all customers equally.
stupid zoho shit
it was gmail that actually pulled users for its office suit with links on the top of the gmail page…
why not zoho provide zmail/zohomail!!??
provide links to office apps in the zmail…
@freakysk
Zoho Mail (which is part of Zoho Virtual Office) will be open to public going forward.
I agree with the post, being in the same market as Microsoft or Google doesn’t mean you have compete for the majority market share to be successful. Being a profitable, inovative company is a success in itself. The name Apple comes to mind, not to draw comparisons, but because within a smaller slice of the overall market they still deliver fantastic (better IMHO) products.
[…] I was interested to read Zoho’s reaction to this – as Zoho is one of the small startups with its own office suite. In their blog they wrote that its aim is to be a best-of-breed solution that gets a nice little slice of the market: “Our business plan is not based on us beating Microsoft or Google, it is based on serving customers well enough to earn a profitable share of the market. Business is not superbowl, though it often appears that way in a 24×7 news cycle.” […]
[…] While 25k pales into comparison with Microsoft Office registered users (which would run into the tens of millions, if not hundreds of millions - anyone have an actual figure for this?), it demonstrates that small Web Office vendors like ThinkFree and Zoho can run a successful ‘niche’ business by taking a small slice of the total office software user base. Zoho recently noted this in a blog post, saying that “our business plan is not based on us beating Microsoft or Google, it is based on serving customers well enough to earn a profitable share of the market.” […]
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[…] Zoho, on the another hand, has undergone fast ontogeny (as CEO Sridhar Vembu puts it, “we essay harder“) - and hopes to vex Google to the 1 meg individual […]
[…] Zoho, on the another hand, has undergone fast ontogeny (as CEO Sridhar Vembu puts it, “we essay harder“) - and hopes to vex Google to the 1 meg individual […]