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Zoho Workplace Now Supports 15 Million Users
Zoho Workplace – a global enterprise collaboration platform – has reported that it is now supporting 15 million users and has experienced a surge in usage for its business applications. Competing in the same space as other office productivity suites, it is notable that 25% of Zoho Workplace’s new customers switched over from Microsoft’s Office 365 and Google’s G Suite.
Zoho touts its success to having better business application integrations, especially by contrast to best-of-breed collaboration tools that do not integrate seamlessly. Users can use Zoho Workplace’s various applications all within a unified platform. These applications include (with usage statistics, where available):
- Zoho Mail (email, calendaring, notes, tasks).
- Zoho Cliq (instant messaging, audio/video call). Since March, Cliq has seen a 225% increase in number of messages sent and a 1,200% increase in calls made per day.
- Zoho Meeting (online conferencing). Since March, Meeting sessions have increased 772%.
- Zoho ShowTime (online training and classroom). Since March, usage has increased 1,100%.
- Zoho Connect (intranet).
- Zoho Office Suite (word processing, presentations, spreadsheets).
- Zoho WorkDrive (cloud storage). Since March, WorkDrive has seen a 300% increase in usage.
Source: SoftwareReviews Zoho Meeting Scorecard. Accessed July 30, 2020.
Our Take
Zoho Workplace is one of the few full office productivity suites available other than Office 365 and G Suite. That its usage has dramatically increased demonstrates that users are open to trying a new platform altogether, escaping the dominance of Microsoft and Google. Zoho, headquartered in Chennai, is especially popular in India. With a growing audience, Zoho Workplace may begin cropping up across North America.
However, Zoho Workplace still has a long way to go to compete effectively with Office 365 and G Suite. To contextualize Zoho Workplace’s 15 million users:
- Azure Active Directory has 345 million active monthly users, many of which are Office 365 tenants. Microsoft Teams alone had 75 million daily active users in April.
- G Suite has 2 billion active monthly users. While we still do not know the breakdown of this figure, it is clear that Zoho Workplace does not come close.
With Microsoft and Google both seeking to heavily integrate their applications within their suites, it is not yet obvious what key selling point Zoho Workplace has to offer. Indeed, it was not made clear whether Zoho Workplace’s 15 million users were active daily/monthly users or just the number of individual user accounts. However, this is not to put Zoho out of the running. After all, Zoho Meeting alone scores highly in SoftwareReviews’ web conferencing category, appearing third out of 16 other solutions. For members looking for a third option in their procurement for an office productivity suite, Zoho Workplace may be your dark horse.