Zoho's Sridhar Vembu calls Big Tech ‘East India Company' as France replaces Zoom, Teams with domestic alternative

France has announced a plan to ditch American video meeting platforms such as Microsoft Teams and Zoom with a domestically developed alternative.

This move has sparked online debate, with Zoho’s co-founder, Sridhar Vembu, sharing his take on the matter, and calling for ‘technology sovereignty’ as sovereign nations seek to assert greater control over their digital infrastructure.

In a post on X (formerly Twitter), Vembu compared recent time's Big Tech companies to the historical East India Company, praising Europe’s awakening to the risks of foreign tech dominance, while also taunting at the irony.

Vembu’s remarks were in response to another post that highlighted France's decision to phase out US-based platforms. The homegrown platform, known as Visio, will be fully implemented in government agencies by 2027. Visio will handle conferencing with data hosted on French provider Outscale, and transcripts or subtitles managed by local firms.

What did Vembu say?

Commenting on the development, Vembu wrote, “The very definition of a “sovereign nation” should now include technology sovereignty.”

“Big Tech now is the New East India company and Europeans are now waking up to it. History seems to rhyme with irony (sic),” the former Zoho CEO said in the X post.

Vembu compares Big Tech to East India Company, suggesting that modern tech giants exercise control over markets through dependencies on data and infrastructure, similar to how the British and French once controlled India and other colonies, though he did not say it outright.

Netizens push for Indian alternatives

Vembu’s post went viral, prmpting strong reactions from users and industry observers alike. Many users have urged him to accelerate the development and rollout of Zoho’s own privacy-focused tools.

Some of his followers questioned why Zoho isn’t promoting Arattai and the rest of its utility software suite more actively in India.

Replying to these queries, Vembu said, “We are updating Arattai weekly. We will make a big push once we reach a certain level of feature compatibility and differentiation.” He added that achieving full tech sovereignty could take at least 5-15 years, citing complex technologies like EUV machines for semiconductors as examples.

Another user said, “In the 21st century, sovereignty isn’t just borders and armies — it’s data, platforms, and standards. Europe relying entirely on foreign Big Tech was always a strategic risk. Tech colonialism looks different, but the power dynamics are familiar. History really does rhyme.”