If you’ve heard of Zoho, you probably think of Zoho Office, its suite of Web-based productivity software (word processor, spreadsheet, presentation). But Zoho Office is primarily as a marketing exercise. Zoho’s real business is in offering a series of Web-based enterprise apps that it started introducing last September—CRM, Project Management, Web conferencing, an online database. And today it is adding Zoho People in beta.
Zoho People is a Web-based enterprise app for managing human resources—recruiting, org charts, HR forms, an employee self-service portal. Here are some screenshots and an online demo.
Zoho People is targeted at small businesses with 50 or more employees—companies that cannot afford PeopleSoft, but cannot manage their business on Excel spreadsheets anymore. More directly, Zoho is going after WorkDay (started by PeopleSoft founder Dave Duffield), Salesforce.com, and smaller online HR apps such as Vemo’s. To get businesses to try it, the software will be free for the beta period. The pricing is yet to be determined, but will probably be in the range of $50/month for HR administrators and $4/month for other employees. It will also be available as part of Zoho’s suite of enterprise apps under blended pricing. Maybe Salesforce should just buy Zoho. Oh yeah, it already tried that.
Zoho People from Raju Vegesna on Vimeo.
They still have a lot to do.
First, who would corporate clients trust more: a company called Salesforce, or a company whose name says nothing (like ZOHO)?
Potential corporate users have to be Web2.0-literate enough to base their operations/activities on such a name.
I am almost sure that Salesforce was after their technology (which may be superior to anything on the market) and not the brand.
ZOHO may have a strong product, but they will have to put a lot of effort into marketing their brand – maybe even get a more serious name if they are after the corporate users.
It’s free, which provides a serious a marketing advantage. Yeah the name’s not kicking, but it will be the service and the product that will define the name.
I think this is a great tool, not just for enterprises, but for startups and mid-sized businesses.
In general, I’m kinda interested in this rich web app movement, is this really the future of software? No more fat clients with fat os’?
Zoho’s products are School projects with good colors.
Actually, its Google that should be worried. Apparently Zoho is beating them up on the “lets get as many apps on the web as possible” contest.
Good try.. keep trying with more new product launches
@3 don’t underestimate buddy, many big names (Google, Facebook etc…) were once upon a time school projects.
@1 – Name is not that big of a deal. You have to build the brand. When yahoo and google came out, their name did not signify anything. It is your products and services that are going to build the brand (Flickr anyone?). if ZoHo keeps building its products and add more functionality, in few years ZoHo will be as popular as yahoo or google
Hi! Does anyone now any similar solution? I am looking for something simple, but it has to be free…
Thank you in advance for any input!
salesforce can simply offer free app for 180 days to any early stage firm and not worry about any threat from these guys. once a firm gets revenue, they dont care about spending a few grand on a rock solid app framework
in the critical business information context – customers want to pay for a superior product from a product from a provider that is ‘on the hook’ legally to some extent.
SugarCRM is a mature product. We’ve done deployments of its open source (gratis and libre) and Professional incarnations. It’s quite functional.
We’ve also done “rolodexes” with Peoplesoft CRM, Filemaker, Exchange, Lotus Notes, and Sugar has been, in my experience, the best of the bunch regardless of cost. Contacts can be related to Accounts; every contact history – emails, faxes, calls – stays related to the Contact record.
Sugar’s grown a lot the last ~5 years, and their “professional services” could use help, but for folks in Zoho’s target market, self setup takes just a little know-how.
Zoho’s apps are a joke. They have so many of them and they’re all of piss-poor quality. They should create one or two really good apps instead of making a ton of crap apps.
Salesforce (NYSE:CRM)?
Zoho?
Afraid of?
BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Fuck “free,” you have to know what SLA means. Zoho’s products, also, suck so much, I want to cry and look on TC for better ones.
They are on a good track by having good products. This suite is maybe the most useful on the web. And if they get a big name to sign with them, then the fearless Google will have problems.
I like them and I wish all the best.
“Zoho’s products are School projects with good colors.”
I agree, the stench of rentacoder site clone request fills is still strong with Zoho tools.
They seem to think that if they clone enough tools that they will eventually build critical mass.
That’s not how the internet works. It’s about the people, not the software. Some anti-social internet geeks can’t understand that. It’s especially hard with people from non-US countries. They don’t realize the difference.
I’ve known about Zoho for awhile now but haven’t actually been to their site until now.
My first thought was, “Wow, I’m logging into gMail!” – then I looked at the page again. Whoops! NOT THE SAME SITE!
Next!
“Oh yea it already tried that”? How about a hyperlink there? I would be interested in reading about that attempt…
Unprofessional product. I logged into their demo account for an administrator and clicked on the “Getting Started” tab and then “Quickly add employee”. A form pops up to add the employee, and can you tell me why it asks for the “Bastardization” of the employee? I am not kidding, that is the wording that they used for nationality. The list is of all of the countries in the world and they refer to it as the Bastardization of the employee.
Even then, I do not believe that it is preferred to be tracking that kind of information on an employee. Sounds like a law suit to me.
Am I wrong in wondering why they chose the word Bastardization?
Org charts? I would guess Zoho’s target market is less inclined to use org charts.
$.02
Oh, and when editing employees, they call it “retardation” for status. Did anyone with a decent knowledge of English even proof read the application before they went live with it?
I am starting to agree, it wreaks of rentacoder, elance, etc.
haha, I should proof read too, I guess. It should have been “reeks” instead of “wreaks”.
Chris: “It’s especially hard with people from non-US countries.”
Er, what? Do you mean what I think you mean?
I use Zoho (CRM/SFA) currently and in the past have used Salesforce and NetSuite. Zoho is a no brainer for companies up to 20-25 sales people.
It’s very robust! These guys will be acquired by MSFT, GOOG or perhaps large enterprise players such as ORCL and SAP.
The only thing holding this company back is the “trust”factor. Slapping on a *brand* logo to these offerings becomes an instant success. Hence, why rumor has it that Salesforce was looking to buy them. – YES, BIG THREAT!!!
@20. Don’t be so “Joelous” with them.
>why rumor has it that Salesforce was looking to buy them.
What a joke
If it takes $4/month/ee to cover their costs this won’t work. UltiPro (www.ultimatesoftware.com) offers a full Payroll/HRMS for about $6-$10. The concept is good. I have clients that would love to have a way to add custom functionality to UltiPro without payign to modify the core product (which creates the Peoplesoft bottomless pit of consulting $$$).
I’ve used other Zoho products but not this one. Does anyone know if they have API’s to link to external data sources? If so, and their prices comes down, I might be VERY busy.
@Zach, you won’t find that information anywhere else. But it happened. Someone involved in the discussions told me. You read it here first.
@27 Erick
What was the range (price) you were hearing?
Erick,
What do you really like when Zoho launches a new product like this?
(a) Their existence in the business for few years?
(b) Their funding currently and ability to survive?
(c) Their product’s feature-set?
(d) Their advertising dollars on your site?
(e) Their current customer-base?
Please describe and what exactly makes you feel that Zoho really doing and does well to rely on their product suite before we buy the license and also before we consider them among other big players.
Thanks
Zoho:
1. Throw around a few buzzwords like Office 2.0.
2. Round 1 funding.
3. GetACoder.com, post.
4. Get result, put custom logos.
5. ???
6. acquisition
Maybe we should try this more/
In general I don’t buy this concept, either. But this is perhaps an exception — change the logo and might be there’s a chance.
Because the logo confers too much feel of play (ie., toyish).. untidy letterings (yes, designed).. doesn’t look serious as biz app alternatives.. (and don’t tell me People is not for biz)..
Technicle : so google’s logo is adult enough for you then?
SuccessFactors.com should be worried, not Salesforce.com
@33: Jason, Google targeted individual users, plus, it was free and it gained its popularity this way.
There is no way ZOHO will become popular by:
1. having this name and brand
2. targeting corporate customers
3. charging money for its products from the start
You guys should see the people in corporations who decide what software to use. They don’t play around – they are serious and they will bet on a company that is on the same wave – hence Salesforce’s success and Zoho’s grim future (as I see it).
Man… is it just me or does Zoho strategy seem to work like this: rather than compete in one space, why not hedge bets by launching a product in every space? This company must be MADE of money…
Sarcasm? Maybe not…
Cheers,
Aidan
http://www.MappingTheWeb.com
@30 LOL
ZoHo is laughing to the bamk right now. They have revenue of $40M with profits of $12M. They don’t need no stinking VC money. You silicon valley types think innovation can only happen in Valley. Not true.
@17 Zach, here is a link with more info. on ZOHO.
http://www.forb...m_0222mitra.htm
haha..all people discussing here are actually making Zoho popular
all the best Zoho
@21 Joel, we set up a demo login account to showcase the functionality – in a product like this, without some real data, it is hard to see what it does. The demo account has full functionality, including customizing the UI (renaming labels, tabs etc). People have “played” with that, which is why you see those.
We will remove the online demo for the time being. We will put it back up in a few days, where the customizations people do in a demo will die with that session, so other users won’t see it.
I have nothing to say to people who criticize name & logo, other than that we have quite a few paying enterprise customers (not only SMBs, large enterprises too) across Zoho services already, and they seem to be like the name & the logo.
Zoho CRM and Zoho Projects are two of our most popular offerings, and those are 100% business-directed.
Sridhar Vembu
FWIW we use Zoho CRM. We took a long look at a ton of tools including Salesforce. Zoho is not perfect, but it’s much faster and easier to use than Salesforce. Price is much lower too. And SalesForce’s API costs a crapload more than standard licensing.
@37 Here is the correct link
http://www.forb..._0222mitra.html
For those wanting more info, click through on the CrunchBase widget at the bottom of the post. You’ll see that Zoho’s parent company is AdventNet, a custom software house that has been around for a dozen years. They have never taken any VC cash, and fund all the Zoho products from the main business.
I see a lot of Web-based apps, and Zoho is doing more stuff in this area than practically anybody else, big or small. But this is post not an endorsement of their products. It is not a product review. It is just reporting the latest news and adding a little analysis.
Anyone who wants to try out their products can do so for free and make up their own minds. If any of you do that, please share with the rest of us your thoughts.
Next they will be getting into Search..
Let’s wait… n see
Cheers, Nag
Also, say what you will about Zoho as a brand name. It is much better than the forgetable, but more respectable, AdventNet.
We looked at ZOHO projects, basecamp, and eProject (now Daptiv). but for those looking for a PM alternative should check out http://www.copperproject.com
I’m not sure why these guys haven’t been TechCrunched, I kinda hope for their sake they don’t though!
DaveS Right on…
“Zoho’s apps are a joke. They have so many of them and they’re all of piss-poor quality. They should create one or two really good apps instead of making a ton of crap apps.”
How you seen their online presentation app? Crap.
Only reason these guys show-up on some of these sites is because they advise (or advertised in the past)
Zoho: Before it is too late, think of DaveS’s suggestion seriously…”create one or two really good apps”
After seeing the screen shots/tour, I’m not so convinced this represents any thing to worry at all for Salesforce.
A couple of developers could build the same application on the force.com platform within a weekend’s time.
Moreover, Zoho has only 15-20 apps, and Salesforce.com has more than 800 (a lot of them free).
At the cost of one app, essentially you can run almost all functions of your business on Salesforce.
Zoho, still has a long way to go before it comes anywhere close…
Most of you here are just a bunch of losers. Here is a bootstrapped company making great products and money, and all you gotta do is give your stupid arm-chair critic comments.
Although I wish Zoho luck with this new product, I am doubtful whether they can take on Salesforce or give them a run for their money at this stage. Maybe I am proved wrong
First of all, Well done Zoho for bringing out a HR management system. You are going to push others ( google, salesforce, MS etc) to focus on product development instead of selling the same old.
For all you who are so quick to criticize Zoho, I would say just give them couple of years. Then you would see more mature products with off-line functionality and tighter integration, site redundancy, ‘asp model’ web hosting, will have 2+ million active users with a few beta corporate customers and hence a bigger revenue stream.
If facebook could be valued at 15 billion even though they don’t have a revenue stream of their own, i don’t think Zoho has anything to worry. Last, they are going to last for a while as they have a good business model. Their parent company may make 12 mil in profit, but they need less than 2 million to support all the 200 s/w programmers in India. So they are not going to run out of money anytime soon. If at all, may be they will run out of ideas.