Zoho: The Little Engine That Could (Take on Both Microsoft and Google)
1–10 of 13 posts
Re: Zoho: The Little Engine That Could (Take on Both Microsoft and Google)
#2What i respect:
a) Zoho's recruitment of smart young hackers in India. They don't look at their degrees, but their skill + tenacity b) Not taking VC money. Granted AdventNet gave them a great start. c) They've built a here to stay business. What I don't respect: a) They basically ripped sugarcrm off with VTiger and called it "REAL open source". Last I checked sugar got past that debate with GPL3, plus zoho relabels vtiger as zohocrm with a new skin b) Their products are soulless and lack innovation. They are basically ms products + ajax with a shitty ui.
Re: Zoho: The Little Engine That Could (Take on Both Microsoft and Google)
#3What i respect: a) Zoho's recruitment of smart young hackers in India. They don't look at their degrees, but their skill + tenacity b) Not taking VC money. Granted AdventNet gave them a great start. c) They've built a here to stay business. What I don't respect: a) They basically ripped sugarcrm off with VTiger and called it "REAL open source". Last I checked sugar got past that debate with GPL3, plus zoho relabels v…
Jason, thanks for the complement and the criticism. To clarify a couple of points: Zoho CRM has nothing do with SugarCRM code. It is entirely written in Java - just as all the rest of the Zoho suite, in fact, it shares the same underlying Java distributed framework with the rest of Zoho.
vtiger has a clean open source license, same as Firefox (MPL) - the entire product is available on that license - and vtiger offered it on exactly equal terms to everyone, including SugarCRM. What is "ripping off" about that? SugarCRM basically has been trying to have it both ways, using the word open source liberally, but not quite living up to it. About half the product they offer is not open source at all. They basically have abused open source as a marketing term. vtiger called them on it. vtiger is doing well - it is now a separate stand-alone company, which was spun out a while ago.
As for our "soulless" UI, I suppose the marketplace will judge. We do have a lot of very happy customers - otherwise we won't be in business. On innovation, have you looked at Zoho Creator?
On the corporate side, there is only a single entity: AdventNet, which itself is a bootstrapped, organically grown company. We just have been around long enough (12 years) to afford to do things like Zoho.
Re: Zoho: The Little Engine That Could (Take on Both Microsoft and Google)
#4What i respect: a) Zoho's recruitment of smart young hackers in India. They don't look at their degrees, but their skill + tenacity b) Not taking VC money. Granted AdventNet gave them a great start. c) They've built a here to stay business. What I don't respect: a) They basically ripped sugarcrm off with VTiger and called it "REAL open source". Last I checked sugar got past that debate with GPL3, plus zoho relabels v…
Jason, thanks for the complement and the criticism. To clarify a couple of points: Zoho CRM has nothing do with SugarCRM code. It is entirely written in Java - just as all the rest of the Zoho suite, in fact, it shares the same underlying Java distributed framework with the rest of Zoho. vtiger has a clean open source license, same as Firefox (MPL) - the entire product is available on that license - and vtiger offere…
Zoho Creator, I believe that CogHead was the first one, and even if not, you have MS Access and a bunch of other tools targeting the same approach
Re: Zoho: The Little Engine That Could (Take on Both Microsoft and Google)
#5What i respect: a) Zoho's recruitment of smart young hackers in India. They don't look at their degrees, but their skill + tenacity b) Not taking VC money. Granted AdventNet gave them a great start. c) They've built a here to stay business. What I don't respect: a) They basically ripped sugarcrm off with VTiger and called it "REAL open source". Last I checked sugar got past that debate with GPL3, plus zoho relabels v…
"Their products are soulless and lack innovation"
this is a culture thing. i'm sure there's innovation, but having worked with indians, i know they prefer to present their product in an classical and conservative way, and that they frown upon aggressive marketing (à la MTV)
the same for Tata and Mittal steel, one of the biggest companies in the world, and who have typically a weaker brandname than Chrysler for instance.
Re: Zoho: The Little Engine That Could (Take on Both Microsoft and Google)
#6When daggers are pointed at innocent hearts, and muskets are ready to fire ...
Re: Zoho: The Little Engine That Could (Take on Both Microsoft and Google)
#7What i respect: a) Zoho's recruitment of smart young hackers in India. They don't look at their degrees, but their skill + tenacity b) Not taking VC money. Granted AdventNet gave them a great start. c) They've built a here to stay business. What I don't respect: a) They basically ripped sugarcrm off with VTiger and called it "REAL open source". Last I checked sugar got past that debate with GPL3, plus zoho relabels v…
"Their products are soulless and lack innovation" this is a culture thing. i'm sure there's innovation, but having worked with indians, i know they prefer to present their product in an classical and conservative way, and that they frown upon aggressive marketing (à la MTV) the same for Tata and Mittal steel, one of the biggest companies in the world, and who have typically a weaker brandname than Chrysler for instan…
More the a culture thing, it may be a group thing.
As in, most people here to look to make shiny new stuff. But most profitable businesses do stuff that could be called boring.
Re: Zoho: The Little Engine That Could (Take on Both Microsoft and Google)
#8What i respect: a) Zoho's recruitment of smart young hackers in India. They don't look at their degrees, but their skill + tenacity b) Not taking VC money. Granted AdventNet gave them a great start. c) They've built a here to stay business. What I don't respect: a) They basically ripped sugarcrm off with VTiger and called it "REAL open source". Last I checked sugar got past that debate with GPL3, plus zoho relabels v…
Jason, thanks for the complement and the criticism. To clarify a couple of points: Zoho CRM has nothing do with SugarCRM code. It is entirely written in Java - just as all the rest of the Zoho suite, in fact, it shares the same underlying Java distributed framework with the rest of Zoho. vtiger has a clean open source license, same as Firefox (MPL) - the entire product is available on that license - and vtiger offere…
Hey Sridhar,
Okay, misinformation on that then. Glad to see that they're different.
That's great that VTiger was offered with a good license, but I don't think the intentions of forking sugar were the best. Their licensing may have caused some issues, but now GPL3 has cleared most of those. If Zoho's products are superior why continue to offer VTiger, which is primarily Sugar's code? Why not just open source ZohoCRM and unify things together? Granted, that is much easier said than done.
Sure, most people haven't woken up to the power of UI. Think of the poor souls still on SAP or Great Plains or whatever CRM you can think of. There's no doubt Zoho is proven. Microsoft is also proven, but the way they execute on products isn't exactly the best.
Zoho Creator is very nice. The app store launched this week via web 2.0 expo is pretty cool.
Adventnet(zoho,vtiger,etc.) is a hell of a business. I just challenge you guys to do something truly different to shake things up. You're right, 12 years has afforded you to do things like Zoho, so take that juice to kick it a few notches up. Best of luck.
-jlb
Re: Zoho: The Little Engine That Could (Take on Both Microsoft and Google)
#9Earlier quoted context omitted.
Jason, thanks for the complement and the criticism. To clarify a couple of points: Zoho CRM has nothing do with SugarCRM code. It is entirely written in Java - just as all the rest of the Zoho suite, in fact, it shares the same underlying Java distributed framework with the rest of Zoho. vtiger has a clean open source license, same as Firefox (MPL) - the entire product is available on that license - and vtiger offere…
Zoho Creator, I believe that CogHead was the first one, and even if not, you have MS Access and a bunch of other tools targeting the same approach
pretty sure zoho was before coghead. These apps are a lot different than MS Access at the end of the day. At the heart, sure there are lots of similarities.
Re: Zoho: The Little Engine That Could (Take on Both Microsoft and Google)
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
Jason, thanks for the complement and the criticism. To clarify a couple of points: Zoho CRM has nothing do with SugarCRM code. It is entirely written in Java - just as all the rest of the Zoho suite, in fact, it shares the same underlying Java distributed framework with the rest of Zoho. vtiger has a clean open source license, same as Firefox (MPL) - the entire product is available on that license - and vtiger offere…
Hey Sridhar, Okay, misinformation on that then. Glad to see that they're different. That's great that VTiger was offered with a good license, but I don't think the intentions of forking sugar were the best. Their licensing may have caused some issues, but now GPL3 has cleared most of those. If Zoho's products are superior why continue to offer VTiger, which is primarily Sugar's code? Why not just open source ZohoCRM…
Jason,
vtiger CRM is now a separate open source product with an active community that will determine it's future. vtiger CRM has evolved significantly over many years with a complete overhaul of the UI and the server framework, and is largely Sugar-Free.
Please note that SugarCRM is open source only with it's limited community edition. Much of SugarCRM software is proprietary.
-Sreenivas Kanumuru (vtiger Team Member)