Why does Zoho Compete with Google?

The question of why and how Zoho competes with Google has been asked many times across this industry. Zoho CEO Sridhar Vembu details why Zoho competes with Google in his latest post at the Zoho Blog.

Sridhar includes an excel sheet in his post that lists revenue per employee and profit per employee between companies like Microsoft, Oracle, SAP, Adobe, Google, Yahoo, and eBay to name a few. What this sheet helps show is that all companies fall short of Google’s revenue/profit per employee metrics. Sridhar believes that even though Google has a huge market in the technologies sector, there’s no rational business incentive for Google to actively pursue the business/IT software category. Zoho already has an array of software applications like Zoho Writer, Zoho Sheet, Zoho CRM , Zoho People , and Zoho Mail just to name a few, it will be interesting to see what steps Google might take in the future to involve itself more heavily in the business software market.

What’s your take on it?

Affordable CRM Application are in the Air

Zoho is at it again! Recently we posted about their latest launch of Zoho People, which helped Human Resource department keep track of all their employees within a secure intranet. So what has Zoho been up to at their labs since the launch of Zoho People?

They’ve launched Zoho CRM – Enterprise Edition. We all know that Zoho CRM’s direct competition is Salesforce.com, but this latest edition claims to be over eight times less expensive than the Salesforce version. Here are some enhancements to Zoho CRM that the Zoho blog mention:

• Introduction of Role-based Security Administration
• Enhancements in product Customiation & Data Administration
• Multi-language Support (11 Languages)
• SSL Support for Professional & Enterprise Versions
• Integration with Zoho Sheet

The most interesting capability in my opinion is the introduction of Role-based Security Administration. This application makes it easier to manage access of employees within organizations with multiple levels. Employees can be classified into different groups and profiles, which can keep managerial documentation away from those who should not have access to such information.

I expect Salesforce.com to come up with a follow-up version of their own application soon, since Zoho has launched a similar app. with all the same features, but at a fraction of the cost.