| About: |
ZOHO is a software publisher of cloud based Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software and an online office suite containing over 25 online applications including word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, databases, note-taking, wikis, project management, invoicing and other productivity applications.
ZOHO Corporation manages three divisions—WebNMS, which serves the needs of original equipment manufacturers (OEMs); ManageEngine, which delivers enterprise IT management; and Zoho.com, which delivers on-line business, productivity and collaboration applications.
Zoho headquarters is in Pleasanton, CA with additional offices in Austin, New Jersey, London, Tokyo and Beijing. Software development resides in Chennai, India. ZOHO is a tightly held privately owned company employing over 1,000 staff. The company claims it is profitable without ever having obtained outside capital. |
| Founded: |
The company was founded as AdventNet Inc. in 1996. In September 2005, Zoho launched its online applications business, and then changed its name to ZOHO Corporation in 2009 to better reflect the Zoho suite of on-line business applications. |
| History: |
AdventNet was founded in 1996 in large part to develop an IT management product portfolio of platform solutions such as database search, information security and test-automation products.
Zoho Office Suite was launched September 2005 as a word processor. The company designed the software to model an online application that would rival Microsoft office.
Zoho CRM was released in June 2006—and the initial release included sales force automation (SFA), marketing and customer service. There was also an order management capability which supported quotes, orders and invoices.
Zoho Show 2.0 was announced in December 2007 and included increased file sharing, mashups within web pages, usability improvements and improved integration with Zoho CRM.
In April 2008, Zoho launched Zoho CRM Enterprise Edition. The enhanced CRM software version included role-based security permissions, improvements to product customisation, more data management tools, multi-language support (initially 11 languages), SSL support for Professional and Enterprise Versions and integration with other online applications such as Zoho Sheet. |
| Ownership: |
Privately held software company. Majority interest held by founder and CEO Sridhar Vembu. |
| Key Staff: |
 |
Sridhar Vembu, Founder and CEO
Forbes quoted him as "Smartest Unknown Indian Entrepreneur". He is quite unique among Silicon Valley tech CEOs—humble, frugal, not concerned with elevating his own profile above the company and has a vision beyond a liquidation event. |
 |
Raju Vegesna, Co-founder and Chief Evangelist
Raju blends a mix of technology management with business communications in order to be a public face for ZOHO Corporation. Prior to Zoho, he was co-founder at InfoThread. |
 |
Tony G. Thomas, Chairman and Founder of AdventNet
Tony was a founder and CEO of AdventNet. He later founded a Web 2.0 data integration company that created innovative technology for mashups and RSS integration, and was acquired by vtiger, an open source CRM software company. |
|
| Customers: |
Zoho states it has 50,000+ customers. Customers are diversified, however, the majority are small businesses. A few Zoho customer marquee names include 3com, Cisco, Citrix, Lockheed Martin, Motorola, Nokia, Qualcomm, Siemans, and Sony Ericsson. |
| Competitors: |
Primary Zoho CRM competitors include the following:
- Salesforce.com, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, NetSuite CRM+, Oracle On Demand and SageCRM.com are the primary software as a service (SaaS) CRM competitors.
- Because of its freemium model and low price point, Zoho also competes with open source CRM solutions, including Concursive, SplendidCRM, vtiger and SugarCRM.
|
