Zoho Face value | Deflating IT | Economist.com

SRIDHAR VEMBU is a dangerous man. If he succeeds, a lot of people will lose a lot of money: software developers, consultants, shareholders and others. The chief executive of AdventNet does not have fraud in mind. Instead, he wants to remove what he calls the “value-pad” from corporate IT in general and business software in particular: all those millions of dollars he thinks are wasted on inefficient production structures, marketing and, not least, proprietary standards. “In the world of corporate IT”, he says, “the low-cost revolution is very much unfinished business.

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Yet Zoho is no mere clone of Google’s applications. It is the most comprehensive suite of web-based programmes for small businesses, including even services to keep track of a firm’s employees and its customers. What is more, although Mr Vembu does not want to earn money with advertisements, he wants to keep prices for business customers rock-bottom. Zoho’s application for customer relationship management (CRM), for instance, starts at $12 per corporate user per month.

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At least in their home countries, they should be very successful. And at some point firms in the rich world will ask whether they are paying too much. As Mr Vembu puts it: “The India or China price will effectively become the world price.”

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