Earlier this year, I wrote about Zoho One " ... the bundle priced at $30 a month an employee, or $75 a month on per-user basis. It was launched in 2017 with 35 applications, it now has over 40. And from the presentations we heard more apps will join the bundle. A dollar a day per employee is a compelling value proposition, when the functionality keeps growing exponentially. "
I compared it to Amazon Prime "The more I heard of Zoho One and the growing apps coverage for the same price, I thought of how Amazon Prime has grown in coverage. It started off a free 2 day shipping, then added free movies and since then countless new features." Prime, of course, has proven to be a rocket ship for Amazon.
This week, Zoho provided an update on One. It's now up to 45 applications. They told me in a side conversation they have 50+ apps right now....just not all announced. "Some are on alpha programs, and we really do test them before we formally launch them or add them to Zoho One!"
Features keep evolving including its workflow management tool, Orchestly, which lets managers and administrators design and run workflows without the need for coding skills and PhoneBridge, its telephony platform, which integrates over 50 telephony vendors on one side and several Zoho applications on the other side.
When you look at services under the cover, like in the "AI" category, you get a sense for the growing richness of the applications.
The tools in the bundle keep evolving, many aimed at end users which SMEs with small IT staff especially appreciate.
Bear in mind, many vendors promised they would take savings from taking advantage of cloud infrastructure at vendors like Amazon and invest that into application functionality, and either have not done so, or are just not productive. Zoho continues to rapidly grow its application footprint even as it grows its proprietary DC network. They have shown they can run their DCs more efficiently than going with public cloud infrastructure.
No wonder the bundle is popular. There are now 20,000 businesses using Zoho One, up from 12,000 last year. According to Zoho, a quarter of Zoho One customers use more than 25 applications and more than 50 percent use 16 or more. So, clearly, customers are buying into Zoho's version of suite.
Indeed, Zoho tried to jam a 158 slide presentation into an hour's time slot. Hey, it's good to see a vendor continue to invest in new functionality, and not just milk what they have delivered in the past.
Makes you wonder how much further our industry would be if other vendors would similarly reverse their 50 to 60% of revenue investment in Sales and Marketing and plough that into R&D.
