7 ms·

They Acquire, Acquire, Acquire While We Build, Build, Build

144 points by sridharvembu 13y ago

philipdlang 13y ago
I've never read such a bitter blog post from a company blog.
- tylerlh 13y ago
  Agreed -- the post had a very bitter/almost jealous tone. I'm not sure this writing would accomplish more than simply putting your head down and continuing to build the products you claimed are already much better.
  - wslh 13y ago
    I loved that politically incorrect blog post. It summarizes what a private company can say in contrast with a public company where each word is precisely crafted to handle the expectations.
  - sbilstein 13y ago
    Totally. I felt like this post made the Zoho executive team seem very immature.
  - faria 13y ago
    Zoho has so-so products, but at least their founder has the right philosophy to invest in R&D, to focus on organic growth and to take care of their products, employees & customers vs. Benioff's failed M&A strategy, which is done to sustain more and more expensive growth and their sky high valuation multiples. Have you ever used Salesforce as a product? I tried it and cancelled within a week; it's super-clunky & complicated. He's got great marketing, but the product is crap. Dismissing Zoho's points based on the author's tone is a bit shortsighted don't you think? Benioff's headcount is ludicrous when you compare the # of staff he has to 37signals on any reasonable metric ($ of sales per employee across any business function).
    - nish1500 13y ago
      Excellent points. He isn't building a profitable, sustainable business. The fundamentals are completely off. However, based on not-very-reliable data, Zoho's revenue per employee is less than Salesforce
- drewcoo 13y ago
  I read it as an attempt to get press on the coattails of his competitors and the stance as intending to seem "scrappy". Color me an optimist but I don't think the intent was to spew bile.
  - tylerlh 13y ago
    I believe you're right. I just think it's a piss-poor way to drive business.
  - enra 13y ago
    I feel that when you have 1600 employees, you're not that scrappy or nimble. It's not like David or Goliath anymore.
    - sridharvembu 13y ago
      We respectfully disagree. Our Zoho Leads iPhone app was launched in under 3 months from concept to shipment, and it was done by 2 people and it is selling! We have a substantial degree of autonomy in the company (possible because we are private) which keeps us nimble. On David vs Goliath, Microsoft, Google & Salesforce are just 3 of the companies we compete with.
    - ok_craig 13y ago
      Seems kinda relative right? Compared to 10,000 it isn't a lot.
  - trustfundbaby 13y ago
    Isn't that something that the 37 Signals dudes recommend in their book and have been doing for years? you know ... "pick a fight" http://gettingreal.37signals.com/ch02_Have_an_Enemy.php http://gettingreal.37signals.com/ch02_Have_an_Enemy.php. Sridhar isn't doing anything different, he's forcing people to pick a side, and guess what ... it usually works.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- sridharvembu 13y ago
  Bitter? We are doing just fine and we have intentionally chosen to remain private (17 years and running now). We could sell the whole thing or go public tomorrow if we choose to. So why would we be bitter? My post is to draw a clear contrast between us and one of our principal competitors. We believe our model would work better for customers long term. The post reflects that conviction.
  - xoail 13y ago
    I agree you Sridhar, that you guys have taken a pretty solid approach. I've been fan of zoho for a long time but unfortunately dont really use any of your products right now. I used to use them few years back but somehow lost interest in zoho offerings, dont remember why. I do also think that the blog post is quite bitter. It reflects frustration more than it shows your strength... any case, wish you best of luck and I hope you guys concentrate on each vertical product with more focus, may be with a separate marketing tactic and domain.
    - sridharvembu 13y ago
      Your point is fair. Anytime we criticize a competitor, we risk being perceived as bitter, which is why I rarely post about Salesforce at all. However, I made an exception here because I felt customers should be educated that they aren't just making product choices, they are also making business model and organizational philosophy choices. My conviction is that our approach would result in a better outcome for customers in the long term. Of course, I can be wrong, and the only real proof is execution. Yes, we are focused squarely on execution - which is why I only post once in 6 months or so.
      - deleted 13y ago
        [deleted]
  - dannyr 13y ago
    Why don't you just let your product speak for itself? I don't think a bitter blog post like that accomplishes anything positive.
- super-serial 13y ago
  Not bitter, but it felt like it was written by an old-school rapper: "You like bitches and stocks, we like builds and money" - Master V(embu)
- levosmetalo 13y ago
  It doesn't look bitter to me. Proud, yes, but not bitter. Seems like Zoho is playing a long game seeking to be profitable for years to come instead of sell-out for immediate cash. That being said, I used Zoho before, but left for Google Apps. Recently I revisited Zoho, but decided to keep looking for Google alternatives. Zoho has great a checklist feature set, but somehow it feels too web 1.0. They offer a bunch of services, but the ones I care about mostly like basic PIM (mail, contacts, calendar, tasks) are nood integrated deeply enough and feel like they require an effort to use. Anyways, good luck to Zoho.
2pasc 13y ago
The truth is that the ZOHO founder is right (acquisition price is a joke, Salesforce product is clunky, Salesforce multiple is crazy). And yet, clear market leaders in high growth markets command premium prices (Amazon has a crazy PE multiple for example). But ask Netflix or Apple. When you screw up one or two quarters, market reacts fast.
- fdr 13y ago
  Meh. Many well-established companies in a lick of trouble run negative P/E ratios for years...as in, the firm is losing money. There may be arguments for or against a given share price, but anything coming strictly from very high P/E values basically shifts the discussion to "what's the forward P/E?" And of course small companies (and startups) lose money all the time, and that's expected while they're gaining momentum. Firms that have very high P/Es (OpenTable and LinkedIn also come to mind) somehow have convinced investors that it's rational for them to spend every scrap of money on growth on a relatively massive scale, as so that the "P" part of the equation approaches zero. It seems then the discussion shifts to what the 'forward' P/E is, aka a prediction about the future where growth has stalled and the business is established and printing money without an obvious place to allocate it sensibly...like Google, or Apple. The theory then being it'd go to dividends, but that doesn't seem to be what has happened, because the business tries to justify holding onto the capital just in case it's needed to grow even more. FWIW...I don't know anything about this stuff and plow just about everything into Vanguard. I have no interest in beating the market, I just want to track "the economy" so I can meet my needs when I can't work anymore. So, grains of salt and all that, but when I think about what a hyperbolic plot does it always mystifies me why people care so much about P/E when either term is close to zero.
  - gfodor 13y ago
    The reason is because high P/E stocks are speculations, not investments.
  - 2pasc 13y ago
    What I mean is that because Salesforce: 1/ hits their sales target 2/ grows reasonably fast 3/ is the leader in SaaS for many large investors (like vanguard) Salesforce has very high valuation, which allow them to acquire Company, raise money in very good conditions and keep growing. In Salesforce case, most of their products are very bad by Silicon Valley/standard standard, and yet, the Company is worth a lot of money. As much as Salesforce is criticizing Oracle, Salesforce is behaving just like Oracle - with a cooler CEO (who is himself a former Oracle guy).
aviv 13y ago
Why is it so difficult to find information about Zoho's management team? 1600 employees and I can't find the name of a single person on their website. EDIT: why downvote this? I'm truly curious. I was a happy customer until not long ago, Zoho's products are great, I just never understood why they don't have a Team/Management page. Unless I'm missing it somehow?
- krakensden 13y ago
  Who cares? Would you purchase a different product based on their racial makeup? Are you looking for the gender balance? Are you concerned about the sex appeal of their CFO?
  - Goopplesoft 13y ago
    Theres quite a bit you can miss when initially deciding on a product. Perhaps knowing the developers on the team would make a long-term decision on the product easier. For example I'm sure it helps 37signals to employer the creator of Rails.
  - ChrisNorstrom 13y ago
    Every startup has faces behind it. A story behind it. Zoho feels like it's hiding something. People like to see the faces of the startups they sign up for. You can't just wear a mask over your face and reach out your hand and say give me money, sign up for my service. Who are you? Where are you? What's your story. That information is important for a business relationship. What kind of leader hides? It's like a man who won't shake hands or tell you his last name. It's just strange. Do they think people are going to avoid Zoho because it's Indian? Facebook, Google, Craigslist, & a bunch of others were started by Jewish founders and you know how people have and continue to feel about Jews. Their ethnicity didn't impact them negatively. Hell, Americans are paranoid about the Chinese and yet still we buy Made in China products. Zoho should be proud. It came from India, it's privately held, profitable, and hasn't taken venture capital or bank loans. I'd put my name all over that If I were the founder. That's an amazing feat.
    - 13y ago
senthilnayagam 13y ago
Could not post this story for couple of Days, mailed to PG, thanks for unblocking/banning :)
Goopplesoft 13y ago
Why is deep integration important? (serious question, I'm not sure). I like Heroku before, I still like Heroku. I'm glad that the website tells me nothing about Saleforce and doesn't require me to make a Salesforce login. As you say integration causes all sorts of headaches and integration does little to improve the business model beyond brand recognition (which is why I'm assuming they do the slight logos changes). Whats the benefit of fully integrating a already successful and recognized platform?
- enra 13y ago
  I guess the authors point was that it since there isn't a deep integration, it doesn't provide value to Salesforce.com users. The question is, why should it if they're not the target customer? Specially recently, people have been acquisitions that get integrated (closed down) and are happy then the company is left alone (Tumblr).
- sridharvembu 13y ago
  Generally the math of the acquisition is that there is "synergy" (i.e 1+1 much greater than 2 kind of logic). Generally when a big price is paid in an acquisition, the intent is that the acquirer would be able to recoup their investment through such synergies, leveraging the acquired company's technology, leveraging the acquirer's own reach and distribution channels to sell more of the acquired product and so on.
jpdoctor 13y ago
> and for that, let’s give credit where it is due: it is not Benioff, it is Bernanke. [applause] The only caveat I'd add: Japan has shown that monetary policy can stay bad for a looong time. While I personally think Zoho's chosen path is certainly more solid, monetary stupidity can last a lot longer than anyone believes it should.
- dxhdr 13y ago
  The market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent, as the saying goes.
- cynicalkane 13y ago
  The Zoho blog wants Bernanke to do the same thing Japan has done for the last two decades: kill the economy with tight monetary policy. They're blaming Bernanke for high stock prices. Because the whole economy should depend on what one blog poster thinks of a handful of stock prices.
  - dxhdr 13y ago
    Right, because clearly the economy is doing great right now. Robust growth across the board, especially in the middle class. I actually don't think we're printing fast enough, rates are still positive afterall. Bernanke could afford to be a bit looser. Well, you're right, tight monetary policy would kill the economy, very briefly. It would force liquidation of debt. Companies that need to go bankrupt would go bankrupt. And we could finally begin to rebuild on solid footing. As it is we're headed for decades of slowly declining standard of living because we're delaying the necessary reallocation of capital by just flooding the market with money. It's not going to solve anything, it's just prolonging the pain.
    - dualogy 13y ago
      > Well, you're right, tight monetary policy would kill the economy, very briefly. It would force liquidation of debt. Indeed! Now think that the USD and its debts is not just America's home currency, but the world's "reserves", even "savings" for a rainy day. So I'd strongly doubt the "briefly" part when the whole world is forced into a "liquidation" (you mean settling?) of debt. Who can untangle the planetary debt webs? No flavour of monetary policy can do that, whether it's coming from US soil or global institutions. Can it ever be repaid in "real terms"? If it is clear that it cannot, the best they can do is to allow for nominal "debt-service performance". The banks demand it, simply because the depositors, pension funds, insurances, billions of people implicitly expect "at the very least that". So you print. Doesn't matter whether the figure-head is Bernanke or Greenspan or Volcker or Yoda. Doesn't matter what Zoho's CEO thinks of this or ZeroHedge. Knowing the "hard place" that needs to be avoided, we cling to the "rock" for as long as possible. That is, as long as the entire planet happily soaks up all the fresh shiny USD coming out of the presses.
dataisfun 13y ago
Zoho's products are mediocre. But I suppose it makes sense in the context of going for the strip mall approach to cloud software. Offer a ton of services and hope to hook the user and upsell. The main problem I find with their service is the design is atrocious.
- sridharvembu 13y ago
  We simply enjoy writing software, and as long as customers keep feeding us, we hope to continue doing it. As for design, have you checked out any of our recent offerings? Would you want to offer a point-by-point critique of our design? I can be reached at svembu at zoho ...
hackermann 13y ago
Zoho's strategy is this 1)Let others innovate, we will copy - Always copy the market leader. Anything that can be copied and built by using Java/MySQL and other free software, they will attempt and flood the market. Let others innovate - Zoho has no patent/discovery to be proud of. They always wait for someone to start first, then piggyback on them. The breadcrumbs that are left by the master is more than enough for the puppy 2) Hire Cheap, Be cheap - Zoho hires school students and give them the ludicrous jobs - Help desk ticket assignment, routine jobs like build management etc. Less than 20% of the total school students hired are working in developmental activities. If you see Zoho's linked-in and facebook pages, they are advertising for fresh Engineers to join them. So what about the school students, CEO? 3)Pay Meager - Zoho's salary is very less compared to other product companies around, but marginally better than the consulting/services company. That way their cash reserves are huge. I assume around $50 million goes into cash reserves every year. 4) Zoho is controlled by Sridhar's family. All other founders have either been chucked out or been demoted. Such a frustration lead to the creation of freshdesk.com
- slamped 13y ago
  ah, ha.. I thought Zoho Creator, a drag and drop app/script builder (or Paas) was their unique idea. Am I misunderstood? ps: Zoho may prune the garden at any time too.
- hackermann 13y ago
  Some more facts about Zoho 1)Mangoes every year - The CEO has amassed so much wealth that he has bought a palatial home in US and estates in South India. Produce of those estates will be given to employees on subsidized rates. The better performer you are, the more mangoes you get. The employees just get to drool. 2)Zoho was earlier called AdventNet. To save tax, and also to chuck the original founders out, they have renamed it to Zoho. I guess there isn't any debris available of AdventNet anywhere (except in the package names of the java exceptions their products throw). 3) Free lunch - You will get free lunch everyday at Zoho. It means a lot to the poor school students they recruit. And last year, there was an Iphone/Ipad choice too. You need these freebies to get people glued in and forget the meager salary they get. 4) Criticize Criticize Criticize - Criticize your degree - Never mind it came from Princeton. That way you charm your fellow employees who then feels that their school leaving certificate is enough. You cite examples of Steve Jobs and Bill Gate and voila. Criticize your competitor (the original topic here) - Never mind what they innovated. That gives you some press coverage and publicity. 5) Family and Family rules - All of Sridhar's family is in this business, though none of the others have got his charisma. This has lead to the stagnation of other employees reaching the top. This is the secret behind they not advertising themselves. As the orginal founders have been chucked out, they know that this will lead to some conflict of interest.
weavie 13y ago
This is the only post on the front page today that's not about government spying.. Well done.
selvan 13y ago
Are n't many famous products (Android, Maps, Docs etc) of google are acquired rather than built?. What you think might work for you, may not work for others. Every organization have to figure out what will work best for their customers, by themselves.
chris_wot 13y ago
Look at how EMC does it. Almost no software companies they bought have really flourished. Smarts, Infra, Voyence, nLayers, Configuresoft and Fastscale are to name just a few. All are on the way out, or are so ridiculously unsuccesful compared to when they were nimble and smaller. If you get acquired by a monolith, then don't expect the acquisition to succeed. It will most likely fail.
curiousdannii 13y ago
Yay, something that's not about the NSA!
darrellsilver 13y ago
Neat article, but deeply undermined by zoho's mediocre execution in their crm product. The data model and search are solid, but the ui is wildly buggy (the back button doesn't work!) and the API is slow, missing features and poorly documented. It's one thing to build, build, build. It's another to build well, build well, build well.
- sridharvembu 13y ago
  Your point is fair - there is no point in building if we don't build well. We are focused on it - and it does take a while for software to mature and become world-class, particularly complex applications with huge data models (lots of tables). As Joel Spolsky said (paraphrasing) it takes 10 years to get software truly right. We will take your criticsm to heart.
  - darrellsilver 13y ago
    That's an elegant response, I gotta say. But here's a post on your forums about the back button not working from _5 years_ ago: https://forums.zoho.com/topic/back-button https://forums.zoho.com/topic/back-button I chose Zoho for our team, and as we grow am fielding more and more complaints about these kinds of issues. What am I supposed to tell them?
    - sridharvembu 13y ago
      I would apologize to your team, and I would circulate this thread internally first. Second, I would review why we got this wrong. We went through a major redesign in CRM after that forum post, and the user experience got much better (our CRM sales jumped as a result). I acknowledge we still have work to do, and we will take your criticism to heart.
      - clicks 13y ago
        Small nitpick: You probably mean to say "I will apologize to your team" not "I would apologize to your team". The word 'would' is used when expressing something in a conditional mood, often times in light of some possible future occurrence. E.g. "I would try harder if only I were getting graded for this assignment" or "I would lose my mind if anything happened to my children". The more you know. :)
tmzt 13y ago
Is there a free webmail product at the start of the funnel? An online office suite?
btom 13y ago
I loved this blog ... no offense on his words, its true

144 points by sridharvembu 13y ago

philipdlang 13y ago

I've never read such a bitter blog post from a company blog.

tylerlh 13y ago
Agreed -- the post had a very bitter/almost jealous tone. I'm not sure this writing would accomplish more than simply putting your head down and continuing to build the products you claimed are already much better.
- wslh 13y ago
  I loved that politically incorrect blog post. It summarizes what a private company can say in contrast with a public company where each word is precisely crafted to handle the expectations.
- sbilstein 13y ago
  Totally. I felt like this post made the Zoho executive team seem very immature.
- faria 13y ago
  Zoho has so-so products, but at least their founder has the right philosophy to invest in R&D, to focus on organic growth and to take care of their products, employees & customers vs. Benioff's failed M&A strategy, which is done to sustain more and more expensive growth and their sky high valuation multiples. Have you ever used Salesforce as a product? I tried it and cancelled within a week; it's super-clunky & complicated. He's got great marketing, but the product is crap. Dismissing Zoho's points based on the author's tone is a bit shortsighted don't you think? Benioff's headcount is ludicrous when you compare the # of staff he has to 37signals on any reasonable metric ($ of sales per employee across any business function).
  - nish1500 13y ago
    Excellent points. He isn't building a profitable, sustainable business. The fundamentals are completely off. However, based on not-very-reliable data, Zoho's revenue per employee is less than Salesforce
drewcoo 13y ago
I read it as an attempt to get press on the coattails of his competitors and the stance as intending to seem "scrappy". Color me an optimist but I don't think the intent was to spew bile.
- tylerlh 13y ago
  I believe you're right. I just think it's a piss-poor way to drive business.
- enra 13y ago
  I feel that when you have 1600 employees, you're not that scrappy or nimble. It's not like David or Goliath anymore.
  - sridharvembu 13y ago
    We respectfully disagree. Our Zoho Leads iPhone app was launched in under 3 months from concept to shipment, and it was done by 2 people and it is selling! We have a substantial degree of autonomy in the company (possible because we are private) which keeps us nimble. On David vs Goliath, Microsoft, Google & Salesforce are just 3 of the companies we compete with.
  - ok_craig 13y ago
    Seems kinda relative right? Compared to 10,000 it isn't a lot.
- trustfundbaby 13y ago
  Isn't that something that the 37 Signals dudes recommend in their book and have been doing for years? you know ... "pick a fight" http://gettingreal.37signals.com/ch02_Have_an_Enemy.php http://gettingreal.37signals.com/ch02_Have_an_Enemy.php. Sridhar isn't doing anything different, he's forcing people to pick a side, and guess what ... it usually works.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
sridharvembu 13y ago
Bitter? We are doing just fine and we have intentionally chosen to remain private (17 years and running now). We could sell the whole thing or go public tomorrow if we choose to. So why would we be bitter? My post is to draw a clear contrast between us and one of our principal competitors. We believe our model would work better for customers long term. The post reflects that conviction.
- xoail 13y ago
  I agree you Sridhar, that you guys have taken a pretty solid approach. I've been fan of zoho for a long time but unfortunately dont really use any of your products right now. I used to use them few years back but somehow lost interest in zoho offerings, dont remember why. I do also think that the blog post is quite bitter. It reflects frustration more than it shows your strength... any case, wish you best of luck and I hope you guys concentrate on each vertical product with more focus, may be with a separate marketing tactic and domain.
  - sridharvembu 13y ago
    Your point is fair. Anytime we criticize a competitor, we risk being perceived as bitter, which is why I rarely post about Salesforce at all. However, I made an exception here because I felt customers should be educated that they aren't just making product choices, they are also making business model and organizational philosophy choices. My conviction is that our approach would result in a better outcome for customers in the long term. Of course, I can be wrong, and the only real proof is execution. Yes, we are focused squarely on execution - which is why I only post once in 6 months or so.
    - deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]
- dannyr 13y ago
  Why don't you just let your product speak for itself? I don't think a bitter blog post like that accomplishes anything positive.
super-serial 13y ago
Not bitter, but it felt like it was written by an old-school rapper: "You like bitches and stocks, we like builds and money" - Master V(embu)
levosmetalo 13y ago
It doesn't look bitter to me. Proud, yes, but not bitter. Seems like Zoho is playing a long game seeking to be profitable for years to come instead of sell-out for immediate cash. That being said, I used Zoho before, but left for Google Apps. Recently I revisited Zoho, but decided to keep looking for Google alternatives. Zoho has great a checklist feature set, but somehow it feels too web 1.0. They offer a bunch of services, but the ones I care about mostly like basic PIM (mail, contacts, calendar, tasks) are nood integrated deeply enough and feel like they require an effort to use. Anyways, good luck to Zoho.

2pasc 13y ago

The truth is that the ZOHO founder is right (acquisition price is a joke, Salesforce product is clunky, Salesforce multiple is crazy). And yet, clear market leaders in high growth markets command premium prices (Amazon has a crazy PE multiple for example). But ask Netflix or Apple. When you screw up one or two quarters, market reacts fast.

fdr 13y ago
Meh. Many well-established companies in a lick of trouble run negative P/E ratios for years...as in, the firm is losing money. There may be arguments for or against a given share price, but anything coming strictly from very high P/E values basically shifts the discussion to "what's the forward P/E?" And of course small companies (and startups) lose money all the time, and that's expected while they're gaining momentum. Firms that have very high P/Es (OpenTable and LinkedIn also come to mind) somehow have convinced investors that it's rational for them to spend every scrap of money on growth on a relatively massive scale, as so that the "P" part of the equation approaches zero. It seems then the discussion shifts to what the 'forward' P/E is, aka a prediction about the future where growth has stalled and the business is established and printing money without an obvious place to allocate it sensibly...like Google, or Apple. The theory then being it'd go to dividends, but that doesn't seem to be what has happened, because the business tries to justify holding onto the capital just in case it's needed to grow even more. FWIW...I don't know anything about this stuff and plow just about everything into Vanguard. I have no interest in beating the market, I just want to track "the economy" so I can meet my needs when I can't work anymore. So, grains of salt and all that, but when I think about what a hyperbolic plot does it always mystifies me why people care so much about P/E when either term is close to zero.
- gfodor 13y ago
  The reason is because high P/E stocks are speculations, not investments.
- 2pasc 13y ago
  What I mean is that because Salesforce: 1/ hits their sales target 2/ grows reasonably fast 3/ is the leader in SaaS for many large investors (like vanguard) Salesforce has very high valuation, which allow them to acquire Company, raise money in very good conditions and keep growing. In Salesforce case, most of their products are very bad by Silicon Valley/standard standard, and yet, the Company is worth a lot of money. As much as Salesforce is criticizing Oracle, Salesforce is behaving just like Oracle - with a cooler CEO (who is himself a former Oracle guy).

aviv 13y ago

Why is it so difficult to find information about Zoho's management team? 1600 employees and I can't find the name of a single person on their website. EDIT: why downvote this? I'm truly curious. I was a happy customer until not long ago, Zoho's products are great, I just never understood why they don't have a Team/Management page. Unless I'm missing it somehow?

krakensden 13y ago
Who cares? Would you purchase a different product based on their racial makeup? Are you looking for the gender balance? Are you concerned about the sex appeal of their CFO?
- Goopplesoft 13y ago
  Theres quite a bit you can miss when initially deciding on a product. Perhaps knowing the developers on the team would make a long-term decision on the product easier. For example I'm sure it helps 37signals to employer the creator of Rails.
- ChrisNorstrom 13y ago
  Every startup has faces behind it. A story behind it. Zoho feels like it's hiding something. People like to see the faces of the startups they sign up for. You can't just wear a mask over your face and reach out your hand and say give me money, sign up for my service. Who are you? Where are you? What's your story. That information is important for a business relationship. What kind of leader hides? It's like a man who won't shake hands or tell you his last name. It's just strange. Do they think people are going to avoid Zoho because it's Indian? Facebook, Google, Craigslist, & a bunch of others were started by Jewish founders and you know how people have and continue to feel about Jews. Their ethnicity didn't impact them negatively. Hell, Americans are paranoid about the Chinese and yet still we buy Made in China products. Zoho should be proud. It came from India, it's privately held, profitable, and hasn't taken venture capital or bank loans. I'd put my name all over that If I were the founder. That's an amazing feat.
  - 13y ago

senthilnayagam 13y ago

Could not post this story for couple of Days, mailed to PG, thanks for unblocking/banning :)

Goopplesoft 13y ago

Why is deep integration important? (serious question, I'm not sure). I like Heroku before, I still like Heroku. I'm glad that the website tells me nothing about Saleforce and doesn't require me to make a Salesforce login. As you say integration causes all sorts of headaches and integration does little to improve the business model beyond brand recognition (which is why I'm assuming they do the slight logos changes). Whats the benefit of fully integrating a already successful and recognized platform?

enra 13y ago
I guess the authors point was that it since there isn't a deep integration, it doesn't provide value to Salesforce.com users. The question is, why should it if they're not the target customer? Specially recently, people have been acquisitions that get integrated (closed down) and are happy then the company is left alone (Tumblr).
sridharvembu 13y ago
Generally the math of the acquisition is that there is "synergy" (i.e 1+1 much greater than 2 kind of logic). Generally when a big price is paid in an acquisition, the intent is that the acquirer would be able to recoup their investment through such synergies, leveraging the acquired company's technology, leveraging the acquirer's own reach and distribution channels to sell more of the acquired product and so on.

jpdoctor 13y ago

> and for that, let’s give credit where it is due: it is not Benioff, it is Bernanke. [applause] The only caveat I'd add: Japan has shown that monetary policy can stay bad for a looong time. While I personally think Zoho's chosen path is certainly more solid, monetary stupidity can last a lot longer than anyone believes it should.

dxhdr 13y ago
The market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent, as the saying goes.
cynicalkane 13y ago
The Zoho blog wants Bernanke to do the same thing Japan has done for the last two decades: kill the economy with tight monetary policy. They're blaming Bernanke for high stock prices. Because the whole economy should depend on what one blog poster thinks of a handful of stock prices.
- dxhdr 13y ago
  Right, because clearly the economy is doing great right now. Robust growth across the board, especially in the middle class. I actually don't think we're printing fast enough, rates are still positive afterall. Bernanke could afford to be a bit looser. Well, you're right, tight monetary policy would kill the economy, very briefly. It would force liquidation of debt. Companies that need to go bankrupt would go bankrupt. And we could finally begin to rebuild on solid footing. As it is we're headed for decades of slowly declining standard of living because we're delaying the necessary reallocation of capital by just flooding the market with money. It's not going to solve anything, it's just prolonging the pain.
  - dualogy 13y ago
    > Well, you're right, tight monetary policy would kill the economy, very briefly. It would force liquidation of debt. Indeed! Now think that the USD and its debts is not just America's home currency, but the world's "reserves", even "savings" for a rainy day. So I'd strongly doubt the "briefly" part when the whole world is forced into a "liquidation" (you mean settling?) of debt. Who can untangle the planetary debt webs? No flavour of monetary policy can do that, whether it's coming from US soil or global institutions. Can it ever be repaid in "real terms"? If it is clear that it cannot, the best they can do is to allow for nominal "debt-service performance". The banks demand it, simply because the depositors, pension funds, insurances, billions of people implicitly expect "at the very least that". So you print. Doesn't matter whether the figure-head is Bernanke or Greenspan or Volcker or Yoda. Doesn't matter what Zoho's CEO thinks of this or ZeroHedge. Knowing the "hard place" that needs to be avoided, we cling to the "rock" for as long as possible. That is, as long as the entire planet happily soaks up all the fresh shiny USD coming out of the presses.

dataisfun 13y ago

Zoho's products are mediocre. But I suppose it makes sense in the context of going for the strip mall approach to cloud software. Offer a ton of services and hope to hook the user and upsell. The main problem I find with their service is the design is atrocious.

sridharvembu 13y ago
We simply enjoy writing software, and as long as customers keep feeding us, we hope to continue doing it. As for design, have you checked out any of our recent offerings? Would you want to offer a point-by-point critique of our design? I can be reached at svembu at zoho ...

hackermann 13y ago

Zoho's strategy is this 1)Let others innovate, we will copy - Always copy the market leader. Anything that can be copied and built by using Java/MySQL and other free software, they will attempt and flood the market. Let others innovate - Zoho has no patent/discovery to be proud of. They always wait for someone to start first, then piggyback on them. The breadcrumbs that are left by the master is more than enough for the puppy 2) Hire Cheap, Be cheap - Zoho hires school students and give them the ludicrous jobs - Help desk ticket assignment, routine jobs like build management etc. Less than 20% of the total school students hired are working in developmental activities. If you see Zoho's linked-in and facebook pages, they are advertising for fresh Engineers to join them. So what about the school students, CEO? 3)Pay Meager - Zoho's salary is very less compared to other product companies around, but marginally better than the consulting/services company. That way their cash reserves are huge. I assume around $50 million goes into cash reserves every year. 4) Zoho is controlled by Sridhar's family. All other founders have either been chucked out or been demoted. Such a frustration lead to the creation of freshdesk.com

slamped 13y ago
ah, ha.. I thought Zoho Creator, a drag and drop app/script builder (or Paas) was their unique idea. Am I misunderstood? ps: Zoho may prune the garden at any time too.
hackermann 13y ago
Some more facts about Zoho 1)Mangoes every year - The CEO has amassed so much wealth that he has bought a palatial home in US and estates in South India. Produce of those estates will be given to employees on subsidized rates. The better performer you are, the more mangoes you get. The employees just get to drool. 2)Zoho was earlier called AdventNet. To save tax, and also to chuck the original founders out, they have renamed it to Zoho. I guess there isn't any debris available of AdventNet anywhere (except in the package names of the java exceptions their products throw). 3) Free lunch - You will get free lunch everyday at Zoho. It means a lot to the poor school students they recruit. And last year, there was an Iphone/Ipad choice too. You need these freebies to get people glued in and forget the meager salary they get. 4) Criticize Criticize Criticize - Criticize your degree - Never mind it came from Princeton. That way you charm your fellow employees who then feels that their school leaving certificate is enough. You cite examples of Steve Jobs and Bill Gate and voila. Criticize your competitor (the original topic here) - Never mind what they innovated. That gives you some press coverage and publicity. 5) Family and Family rules - All of Sridhar's family is in this business, though none of the others have got his charisma. This has lead to the stagnation of other employees reaching the top. This is the secret behind they not advertising themselves. As the orginal founders have been chucked out, they know that this will lead to some conflict of interest.

weavie 13y ago

This is the only post on the front page today that's not about government spying.. Well done.

selvan 13y ago

Are n't many famous products (Android, Maps, Docs etc) of google are acquired rather than built?. What you think might work for you, may not work for others. Every organization have to figure out what will work best for their customers, by themselves.

chris_wot 13y ago

Look at how EMC does it. Almost no software companies they bought have really flourished. Smarts, Infra, Voyence, nLayers, Configuresoft and Fastscale are to name just a few. All are on the way out, or are so ridiculously unsuccesful compared to when they were nimble and smaller. If you get acquired by a monolith, then don't expect the acquisition to succeed. It will most likely fail.

curiousdannii 13y ago

Yay, something that's not about the NSA!

darrellsilver 13y ago

Neat article, but deeply undermined by zoho's mediocre execution in their crm product. The data model and search are solid, but the ui is wildly buggy (the back button doesn't work!) and the API is slow, missing features and poorly documented. It's one thing to build, build, build. It's another to build well, build well, build well.

sridharvembu 13y ago
Your point is fair - there is no point in building if we don't build well. We are focused on it - and it does take a while for software to mature and become world-class, particularly complex applications with huge data models (lots of tables). As Joel Spolsky said (paraphrasing) it takes 10 years to get software truly right. We will take your criticsm to heart.
- darrellsilver 13y ago
  That's an elegant response, I gotta say. But here's a post on your forums about the back button not working from _5 years_ ago: https://forums.zoho.com/topic/back-button https://forums.zoho.com/topic/back-button I chose Zoho for our team, and as we grow am fielding more and more complaints about these kinds of issues. What am I supposed to tell them?
  - sridharvembu 13y ago
    I would apologize to your team, and I would circulate this thread internally first. Second, I would review why we got this wrong. We went through a major redesign in CRM after that forum post, and the user experience got much better (our CRM sales jumped as a result). I acknowledge we still have work to do, and we will take your criticism to heart.
    - clicks 13y ago
      Small nitpick: You probably mean to say "I will apologize to your team" not "I would apologize to your team". The word 'would' is used when expressing something in a conditional mood, often times in light of some possible future occurrence. E.g. "I would try harder if only I were getting graded for this assignment" or "I would lose my mind if anything happened to my children". The more you know. :)

tmzt 13y ago

Is there a free webmail product at the start of the funnel? An online office suite?

btom 13y ago

I loved this blog ... no offense on his words, its true