Comment by hackermann | Hacker News Reader

Comment by hackermann | Hacker News Reader

Zoho's strategy is this

1)Let others innovate, we will copy - Always copy the market leader. Anything that can be copied and built by using Java/MySQL and other free software, they will attempt and flood the market. Let others innovate - Zoho has no patent/discovery to be proud of. They always wait for someone to start first, then piggyback on them. The breadcrumbs that are left by the master is more than enough for the puppy

2) Hire Cheap, Be cheap - Zoho hires school students and give them the ludicrous jobs - Help desk ticket assignment, routine jobs like build management etc. Less than 20% of the total school students hired are working in developmental activities. If you see Zoho's linked-in and facebook pages, they are advertising for fresh Engineers to join them. So what about the school students, CEO?

3)Pay Meager - Zoho's salary is very less compared to other product companies around, but marginally better than the consulting/services company. That way their cash reserves are huge. I assume around $50 million goes into cash reserves every year.

4) Zoho is controlled by Sridhar's family. All other founders have either been chucked out or been demoted. Such a frustration lead to the creation of freshdesk.com

You seem to have an axe to grind - almost all the points you mention (assuming they are true) can describe a well managed company, if you skip the negative spin.

well managed company? What he described is very nearly rent seeking. If a company is never innovating and always simply copying what everyone else does then that means that, 1) they will always be cheaper than their competitors and 2) if they ever completely win their market they will be stuck with the last iteration because they can't afford to innovate.

People like to say a race for the bottom is good for consumers but it isn't. A race for the bottom is only good for people playing arbitrage games who know to get out before the bottom is reached.

If your thesis is correct, the optimal strategy for us would be to sell when the prices are very high (like they are now) i.e collect the next 50 years of "rent" right now, because it is so readily available. Instead, we continually and steadily improve the product (while clearly acknowledging that we have much work to do). Don't you think that is an awful rent seeking strategy?

It's amusing that you're defensive on this subject. Someone accused you of something, then another commenter said the described strategy was actually that of a well managed company. I explained the described strategy was very nearly rent seeking. So even though the thread started about your company, it became more general and that's when I stepped in.

I wasn't talking about your company specifically because I don't even know what you do. But the fact that you're defensive enough to take my comment as an attack makes me wonder if the OP was actually close to the mark. :)

No I didn't think you accused us of that. I merely responded what we would do as a rent seeker :)

As for the original accusations, "develop a thick skin" is my attitude, so you saw I never bothered to respond.

Fair enough.

I am the co-founder and CEO of freshdesk. I want to clarify here that I spent close to ten years at Zoho and I thoroughly enjoyed every bit of it. There was absolutely no frustration leading to the creation of freshdesk. Zoho has been a great place to experiment and learn and I owe a lot of what I learnt to Zoho. Regarding hiring school students, I think the media has hyped it beyond reality. I have seen first-hand on how it changes lives of kids who would otherwise have had no access to college education and would have been pushed into poverty. Having been a Senior manager at Zoho for several years I know that Zoho pays it's star performers reasonably well, but anyone who leaves Zoho always commands a premium in the market.(That speaks volumes about the quality of the experience that we pick up there)

"Zoho hires school students and give them the ludicrous jobs - Help desk ticket assignment, routine jobs like build management etc"

These jobs have to be done by someone.. I don't see why these jobs should be "below" school leavers. Hell, its a good place to start for them to gain some experience anyway.

ah, ha.. I thought Zoho Creator, a drag and drop app/script builder (or Paas) was their unique idea. Am I misunderstood?

ps: Zoho may prune the garden at any time too.

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