Zoho enhances its CRM application for enterprises

On the heels of Salesforce.com integrating with Google Apps, Zoho on Wednesday announced enhancements to its Zoho CRM Enterprise Edition, adding role-based security administration, SSL support, integration with Zoho's spreadsheet, custom fields, and other features.

The cost of the Zoho CRM Enterprise Edition is $25 per user per month, with the first three users free of charge. The Zoho CRM Professional Edition is $12 per user per month.

In a blog post this week, Sridhar Vembu, CEO of Zoho parent company AdventNet, took issue with Salesforce's business model, noting that his competitor spends nearly eight times as much on sales and marketing as it does on research and development.

"Sounds to me (like) a textbook definition of 'business model bloat.' If you are a customer of Salesforce, it makes you feel really happy that the company spends (eight times as much) on selling to you as (it does on) writing the code, right?," he wrote. He added that the Salesforce business model is "an evolutionary dead end" and cited the "silent popularity of Zoho CRM."

At this point, the Salesforce business model has generated nearly $1 billion in annual revenue and 41,000 customers. The operating margin isn't great, but the company has established itself as an industry force with a generous stock price.

At some point, Salesforce's cost of sale should decrease, and the Google alliance will legitimize the on-demand services of both companies. Zoho's development prowess and low cost, and the "silent popularity" of Zoho CRM, has not resulted in a business model breakthrough so far.

At one point, Salesforce was in talks to acquire Zoho, which Vembu recounted in his blog post. He said the two cultures would not mesh and claimed that Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff said Zoho could be part of his company's AppExchange, if it didn't pull the plug on Zoho CRM altogether.

Zoho has built an impressive set of cloud-based applications at a rapid pace. Following the enhancements to Zoho CRM, Zoho Sheet is slated to gain support for macros and pivot tables.

Word-of-mouth marketing isn't enough when you are competing with giant and innovative companies such as Google and Salesforce. But Zoho's small team is not lacking in focus, talent or desire.

Webware's Rafe Needleman and I interviewed Vembu in this video about how Zoho plans to compete against Microsoft and Google in the office suite space.

Following is a Zoho video about the new enterprise CRM functionality:

[sgtlyon]

Zoho is great! I have not had the time to really use the CRM to it's potential, but... Zoho creator alone has made my job three times easier.

[jeff_devault]

"At some point, Salesforce's cost of sale should decrease".

There you go again with your typical Salesforce.com positive bias. You have been seduced by all the cool parties Benioff has invited you to. Pathetic.

How will their cost of sales decrease with price competition from Microsoft, SAP and Oracle on the high-end and Zoho on the low-end. Has anything in Benioff's history led you to believe he is a cost cutter?

Check out this quote:
"...But while some at Oracle remember Benioff as an all-star, others--especially those turned off by such hype--didn't understand why he was considered so special. Critics say he wasn't much of a manager and couldn't run a group. "Marc was one of Larry's favorite children," says former Oracle president Ray Lane. "He had good ideas, but he didn't create a lot of revenue and had no respect for the organization or the political process." Some denounce the software he worked on, saying it was copied from Microsoft or Apple ideas. Others disapproved of the massive amounts of money Benioff spent. He was known to drop $1 million on a launch, including nonessentials like logoed jean jackets or hiring his masseuse to de-stress his team before the big event. A former colleague remembers a widely circulated sentiment: "Benioff spent more on T-shirts than he generated in revenue."

from http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fsb/fsb_archive/2003/03/01/338759/index.htm

[WeCanDoBIZ]

So he was a maverick! I am not sure that lack of respect for a leviathan is necessarily a bad thing (unless you are commenting from inside of course). That said, I do think Benioff's ambitions for world domination before managing to do CRM properly are perhaps the business plan of an egotist rather than a pragmatist.

Back to Zoho, they don't lack ambition. I hope they get some time to flourish on their own before they are snapped up and the chutzpah gets lost.

Ian Hendry
http:///www.wecando.biz

[ncl209]

In my opinion Salesforce.com will soon be on its way out, thanks to its massive unpopularity with its users and the fact that it is being surrounded on all sides with good free CRM such as Zoho and www.octopuscity.com. The only thing keeping Salesforce.com afloat right now must be the aggressive (or "sneaky") billing and sales approaches, and name recognition.

[optimak]

<a href="http://www.topcrmapplications.com">CRM Application</a> has it's ups and downs. Free CRM and Commercial CRM also have important differences.

-Top CRM Applications

[optimak]

CRM Applications have it's ups and downs. Free CRM and Commercial CRM also have important differences.

-Top CRM Applications
http://topcrmapplications.com/