Zoho Eyes Channel To Bring SaaS To Small Businesses

Company:

Headquarters: Pleasanton, Calif.

Technology Sector: Software

Key Product: Zoho Business Suite

Year Founded: 2005

Number of Channel Partners: 50 in North America

Ideal Channel Partner: Small business-focused solution provider

Why You Should Care: Upstart Zoho, a division of AdventNet, is taking on big SaaS guns like Microsoft and Google by offering a wider range of online business applications at more competitive prices.

The Lowdown: AdventNet believes that its broader, deeper range of Zoho online productivity, collaboration and business applications gives it the upper hand over Google and Microsoft in the race to bring Software-as-a-Service offerings to the lower reaches of the market.

AdventNet offers a suite of standard business applications free of charge to organizations with fewer than 10 users, after which it charges $5 per use per month, or $50 per user per year. But

the vendor's ambitious Zoho roster of 19 SaaS applications also includes CRM, database and project management offerings, all of which small businesses haven't been able to afford to deploy.

"We're trying to be the IT department for small and medium businesses that can't afford an IT person," said Raju Vegesna, chief evangelist for AdventNet, Zoho's Pleasanton, Calif.-based parent company.

With 300 employees and a user base of around 1.5 million, Zoho has begun to take customers away from more entrenched rivals, and the company is signing up 100,000 new users each month. Zoho relies on its 50 North American resellers to bring its SaaS offerings into vertical markets, Vegesna said.

Georges Khairallah, principal consultant of GK Consulting, a Chino Hills, Calif.-based Zoho partner, says strong application integration and low price points are helping Zoho succeed in its goal of penetrating the SMB space. Zoho also seems to grasp the importance of support in a healthy channel program, something that some of its competitors have not.

"I have always been able to get good channel support from Zoho, while Google offers support only through online forums," Khairallah said.

Zoho still needs to work on integrating its CRM and project management offerings, but the company has accomplished much in a short period of time, Khairallah said, noting that he expects Zoho to become a force to be reckoned with in the SaaS market.