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THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 26, 2009

Sridhar: We are already very low. We actually already priced our products for example our CRM product is one fifth of the Salesforce pricing. So we price it to be closer to the cost so that is how we do business, and does that mean how can I foresee what is going to happen? Will customers actually buy that message, will they or do they agree to with me in this that we have to see next year or two years later but our assumption is that yes this is the difficult condition, people want a better value in their spending and we are positioning ourselves for that type of a difficult economic time.

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Kamla: Finally, what do you think went right for you?

Sridhar: Our real joy is our engineering organisation and that has actually kept us in the game. Repeatedly coming up with really good products again and again. We have released 18 products in the Zoho suite now and our team has executed it flawlessly you know I cannot take the credit I did not write the code but our team of engineers are really good and that is what has gone really right in our business.

Kamla: Is there anything else you would like to add Sridhar?

Sridhar: Yes I think I said we are kind of a different company than a typical company that you come across here and lot of it is actually things that we have learnt over the years. We did not start in 1996 with all of this. I would be lying if I say in 1996 we foresaw all of this, but every step what we have done is that we have adapted ourselves to what the conditions are and we had a core philosophy although we were in the year 2000 we always felt offering a better value better than trying to market and get customers spend a lot of money on you. So we always felt and we also always believed that engineering is a form of market. Putting out a great product is in itself a great form of marketing so those are all the things we still look by.

Kamla: Sridhar it was a pleasure to talk to you and we wish you all the best with Zoho and I look forward to seeing you if you would become a dangerous man by 2009.

Sridhar: Thank you Kamla.

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Anonymous Said:


I like the directness and total honesty of yours Sridhar. That is remarkable. Hats off to that - I am sick and tired of listening to the political, diplomatic and ignorant comments of CEOs in Indian IT (well mostly IT services!), like: Krish G of Infy says - in Dec 2007 - Downturn will not have any impact. Now after 1 year it will be 15% growth! S. Ramadorai of TCS says - We are not bothered about our some financial clients being lost. Now says we are living in unpredictable times! NASSCOM Chief now - S. Mittal - Shall I say something?? The list is distinguished and endless. What hurts me most is that they are playing with many young professionals who come to IT for the lure of money. What is wrong in saying - I do not know actually. How hard is to say that??? Personally I am not surprised as I know the many PM/GM/TM/DM etc in their companies have not written a single piece of code in their entire career. But why these guys keep on ducking the truth??? On the other hand I do not agree with your data and application rebel theory. Application will always be there to control data. If you talking of data neutrality, I am really sorry. This is a long haul. We all know how they are collaborating in language front (IDL came and went, ...then XML is new fashion now) or in market front say OSS/BSS interoperability. Loooooooong battle, no victory or loss in sight yet. Btw, (not important at all) but I guess the number of IITians is perhaps more. You, Tony, Shailesh and Sekar are from IIT (=4). But it is totally meaningless as I have seen in software. IIT/IIM etc do not matter and I respect your candor on that. May be high time GOOG, MSFT, YHOO learn something from here. So also IIT/IIM guys - recently I was talking to one and I was suffocated with the arrongance within minutes.

Posted On 12/18/2008 5:41:15 AM
Vivek Said:


Your interviews are great and I especailly enjoyed your conversation with Sridhar Pembu- here is an original thinker who is very clear in his goals and direct in approach and retains the ability to "reboot" and "reload" as necessary. However, you really need to have these available as podcasts so that they are not owned by the computer and are liberated to be listened to on the move.

Posted On 12/31/2008 4:00:24 AM