- Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw announced switching to Zoho, a homegrown software suite
- Ashwini Vaishnaw urged citizens to adopt indigenous products, supporting PM Modi’s call
- Zoho founder Sridhar Vembu thanked Ashwini Vaishnaw and praised engineers’ two decades of work
Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw on Monday said he was switching to Zoho, a homegrown software suite, as part of his call to embrace Swadeshi platforms.
"I am moving to Zoho - our own Swadeshi platform for documents, spreadsheets and presentations," the Minister for Electronics and Information Technology wrote on X.
In a video shared online, Mr Vaishnaw added, "This is phenomenal. I am so impressed with the capabilities of Zoho."
He also urged citizens to heed Prime Minister Narendra Modi's call to adopt indigenous products and services.
Zoho founder Sridhar Vembu shared the video and thanked him. The entrepreneur said this was "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," he added.
About Zoho
Headquartered in Chennai, Zoho Corporation is a software company that develops a wide range of cloud-based applications for businesses and individual users. Founded in 1996 by Sridhar Vembu and Tony Thomas, the company began as AdventNet before rebranding as Zoho in 2009.
It is widely regarded as a homegrown alternative to global software suites like Microsoft Office 365 and Google Workspace.
The company offers more than 40 integrated applications, including Zoho Writer, Sheet, and Show for productivity, Zoho CRM for customer management, Zoho Books for accounting, Zoho People for HR operations, and Zoho Desk for customer service. In 2017, Zoho launched Zoho One, an all-in-one package that bundles most of its apps into a unified platform.
Zoho has also been investing heavily in artificial intelligence, launching its own large language model (LLM) and AI agents to reduce reliance on external technologies and enhance efficiency.
At the same time, some projects have faced hurdles, such as its $700 million semiconductor manufacturing plan in Karnataka, which was suspended after the company failed to secure a suitable technology partner, Reuters reported.
