Mathew's comments - Latest Comments in Look ma, my docs are in the cloud!

Re: Look ma, my docs are in the cloud!

Sridhar Vembu — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 22:16:21 -0000

Mathew, no question Google has the formidable brand. I didn't take your post negatively either - I actually appreciate your mentioning Zoho! I was just saying (assuring, really!) Zoho is a viable choice against the much bigger Google - because we have a sustainable business model, and sufficient scale to compete. Sort of like how a 50-store chain can often compete against a 5000 store chain, by specializing and differentiating.

Our key differentiation is richness of features, sharp focus on the needs of demanding business users, and the breadth of product portfolio addressing such needs.

Re: Look ma, my docs are in the cloud!

mathewi — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 20:22:02 -0000

Thanks for pointing all that out, Sridhar -- I didn't mean to suggest
that Zoho was some kind of fly-by-night organization or anything. I
just think Google is a little bit better known, that's all.

Re: Look ma, my docs are in the cloud!

Sridhar Vembu — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 19:49:27 -0000

Mathew,
Thanks for using Zoho! While there is no such thing as perfect security or perfect safety, we take all the standard precautions in the Zoho data center. It is in a top-notch facility in California (as well as a remote backup), and we keep 3 copies of your data + a backup. We have 700K+ users already on Zoho, growing fairly rapidly.

Yes, scale economics does apply, but it plays even at our size. Cost per user to scale tends to fall rapidly starting from zero users, and then it flattens out (so the first million user drops the cost very rapidly, while going from 10 to 11 million does not drop the per user cost that much).

Finally, Zoho's parent AdventNet has been in business 12 years, with profitable, organic growth. From a development perspective, we have demonstrated the ability to execute, and we will continue to put out a steady stream of updates.

Sridhar