Business

What Is Zoho? The Indian Platform Favoured By Ashwini Vaishnaw Over Microsoft And Google

AnyFans 2025-09-24

By News18,Sahas Mahapatra

Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw has announced that he is moving to Zoho, a homegrown platform for documents, spreadsheets and presentations. Sharing this on X (formerly Twitter), he encouraged people to follow Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s call for Swadeshi by using indigenous products and services.
“I am moving to Zoho — our own Swadeshi platform for documents, spreadsheets & presentations. I urge all to join PM Narendra Modi’s call for Swadeshi by adopting indigenous products & services,” Ashwini Vaishnaw posted.

I am moving to Zoho — our own Swadeshi platform for documents, spreadsheets & presentations.
Zoho CEO Sridhar Vembu responded to the announcement, saying, “Thank you Sir, this is a huge morale boost for our engineers who have worked hard for over two decades to build our product suite. We will make you proud and make our nation proud. Jai Hind.”

Thank you Sir, this is a huge morale boost for our engineers who have worked hard for over two decades to build our product suite.
We will make you proud and make our nation proud. Jai Hind
But what exactly is Zoho and what makes it a popular choice for businesses? Let’s take a look.
What Is Zoho?
Founded in 1996 by Sridhar Vembu and Tony Thomas, Zoho Corporation is a software company that is headquartered in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. The company provides more than 55 applications for businesses that cover a wide range of functions such as email, accounting, HR, project management, customer relationship management (CRM) and more.
Zoho Customers
With the tagline “Made in India. Made for the world.”, Zoho has over 130 million users across more than 150 countries. Its clients include startups as well as large corporations such as Amazon, Netflix, Deloitte, Puma, Toyota, Sony, L’Oreal and more.
Zoho’s Productivity Tools
Zoho provides a vast range of tools for businesses. To manage customer relationships and grow sales, companies can opt for tools such as Zoho CRM that help track leads and contacts. There are Zoho Campaigns for email marketing and Zoho Social for social media management. Moreover, there is Zoho SalesIQ that even lets businesses chat with website visitors in real time.
On the financial side, Zoho has tools such as Zoho Books for accounting, Zoho Invoice to make billing simple, Zoho Expense to track costs and Zoho Inventory to manage products. And digital approvals are made easy with Zoho Sign.
Teams can write documents with Zoho Writer, create spreadsheets with Zoho Sheet or design presentations with Zoho Show. Files can be stored and shared securely via Zoho WorkDrive, while Zoho Mail and Zoho Cliq ensure communication is smooth. Zoho Notebook, Zoho Meeting and Zoho Calendar further support planning and daily productivity.
Human resources are also covered with Zoho People (manages employee data and attendance) and Zoho Recruit (simplifies hiring and recruitment processes).
For IT and security, Zoho provides solutions like Zoho Vault for password management and Zoho Lens for remote assistance.
Zoho’s AI Initiatives
Zoho has also recently launched Zia LLM, an AI model designed to meet business needs securely. It processes data on Zoho’s servers that ensures privacy while helping companies with tasks such as summarising data, extracting key information, generating code and supporting decision-making.
Zoho also introduced Zia Agent Studio, a no-code platform that allows businesses to create AI “digital employees.” These agents can automate tasks such as screening job candidates, analysing sales deals or suggesting new opportunities. Over 25 AI agents are currently available on the Zia Agent Marketplace for immediate deployment, according to the company.
Zoho Projects Plans
According to tech.co, Zoho Projects comes with three pricing options. Take a look.
Free Plan: Supports up to five users and provides 5 GB of storage. It also includes a few external integrations like Microsoft Teams, Zapier, and Zendesk. This plan is completely free of charge.
Premium Plan: Designed for teams of up to 50 users, this plan offers 100 GB of storage. Users can manage unlimited projects and access up to 20 project templates. The cost is $4 (approximately Rs 353) per user per month when billed annually.
Enterprise Plan: Suitable for larger teams with no user limits, this plan includes 120 GB of storage, unlimited projects and up to 30 project templates. It is priced at $9 (around Rs 796) per user per month on an annual billing cycle.