Zoho, the SaaS based software product company from India has decided to delve into mobile & gamification mode. They have launched 4 new products within their eco-system, which will challenge Microsoft and Google’s dominance in this niche.
The company which calls themselves as ‘Operating System of Businesses’ has just completed 20 years of existence, and their new products are being launched with the tagline: ‘Made in India. Made for the World’. As per their founder Sridhar, there are right now 30+ apps available on Zoho platform, and 1.8 crore customers from 122 countries are right now using their products and services.
Zoho’s New Products
Zoho Writer, is a new state of the art word processor which has been designed to be collaborative, powerful and on the cloud. Teams can work simultaneously on Zoho Writer, and even chat. Using Whatsapp type double-tick system to showcase which messages have been read, Zoho has inherited the best parts from Microsoft Word, Google Docs and even Whatsapp to some extent.
AppCreator is their new mobile centric product, which will enable anyone to create an app without any knowledge of Android or iOS programming language. During the Chennai floods, Zoho employees created an app to collect donations using this same tool; and they were able to go live in 30 minutes. Zoho’s focus on mobile is a clear signal that their next destination is being the #1 SaaS company in mobile space.
Notebook is another new product from Zoho, which has been designed with mobile in focus. Users can store any form of data: text, visual or video on Notebook, which would be instantly available across all connected devices. The interesting fact about Notebook is the new aesthetic appeal which Zoho is trying to incorporate into their products. Using colors and designs, Notebook is trying to give an interesting interface to the current tools and apps.
GameScope is Zoho’s fourth new product, which will enable employees to gamify any project and related tasks within an office or work environment. And the best part is that, the game creator has the power to keep their boss out of the game; thereby creating an internal competition and race to make the process more interesting.
Zoho’s Monetization Strategy
As per Sridhar, founder of Zoho, they are strictly against advertisement based monetization model, as it disrupts users’ experience.
As per unconfirmed reports, Zoho has an annual turnover of $300 million, and they have never accepted any VC funds. As Sridhar shared, their only focus is to make their products robust and more useful; and then offer them for free. As their customers (who are mostly SMBs), grow in their business, they start to pay Zoho for using the advanced features; and this is how Zoho is right now growing at a fast pace.
Besides, Zoho is also investing around Rs 70 crore in their new data center in Chennai, which will enable them to offer SaaS based products without any issue of space or bandwidth.
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