Comment by vee-kay

Comment by vee-kay a day ago

12 replies

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Indian government announced its decision recently to migrate the IT software of all its government offices and PSUs (public sector units) from Microsoft to Zoho (an India-based IT company, whose affordable products are good alternatives to Microsoft and Google's products).

Zoho has recently (re)launched Ulaa browser (Chromium fork, alternative to Chrome and Firefox) and Arattai (messenger app, alternative to Whatsapp and Singal), which are getting quite popular (Arattai and Ulaa topped Google Play Store recently in messenger and browser category).

https://www.newsbytesapp.com/news/science/meet-ulaa-zoho-s-a...

Ringz a day ago

Good news but it would be much better if Zoho would be committed to open source its software.

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  • vee-kay a day ago

    Corporates (even governmental companies/ departments) don't usually go for Open-Source since the code may not be maintained and there may not be any support.

    This is why FOSS systems like Linux and OpenOffice are still not mainstream in the corporate world (though Linux rightfully dominates in the backend server market), whereas Microsoft rules the corporate world with its expensive software (Windows and MS-Office).

    Reply View 3 replies
    • ivan_gammel a day ago

      Plenty of server-side FOSS is mainstream. Maintainability of the code is not the problem — there exist commercial support options. On desktop FOSS often has inferior usability for non-tech users due to different incentives for product development. If you ask anyone in the legal or accounting departments of a corporation, they will demand Microsoft (not even Google) not because it’s more expensive or has terms and conditions, but because they just can’t feel themselves productive when using alternatives. LibreOffice is not bad, but it isn’t great too.

      Reply View 0 replies
    • rubzah 8 hours ago

      > since the code may not be maintained and there may not be any support.

      Isn't this an argument in favor of open source? Zoho may not be around forever, but open source code is, and you could just pay someone to work on it.

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  • lewisjoe a day ago

    Just curious: why is committing to open-source an expectation? Is it a moral standard you hold of businesses or is it because of the govt adoption?

    Reply View 1 reply
    • TuringTest a day ago

      Open-source has many technical advantages over closed-source, in addition to the moral ones (which are quite powerful themselves).

      Being able to inspect the software you use makes you able to trust house it works, and fix it at points where it's not working; those were the first motivators for creating the FLOSS movement.

      There's also the advantage that in the long term you don't depend on the company developing the software; if the company goes under, or simply stops supporting the software, you can hire a different batch of developers to carry on maintaining it. That's the reason why many big contracts require that the software vendor puts the source code under escrow.

      In reality, closing the source of software only benefits the seller; everybody else benefits from having it available. With FLOSS, you get that for free.

      Reply View 0 replies
navigate8310 a day ago

Being a closed-source stack, their CVE disclosures [0] paints quite a sorry picture, unless, of course, they’ve built such mind-blowing security that it makes Microsoft, Oracle, Salesforce and Google combined look like amateurs.

[0] https://www.cvedetails.com/vendor/14145/

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  • danielscrubs 14 hours ago

    You are criticising them for their lack of CVEs?

    And to top it off you add Microsoft into your mentions, that just had a disastrous security bug, that was just mind blowing?

    I get what you are saying but the FANG evangelism gotta stop. They are just like other huge companies. When was the last time your bank got hacked?

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nextos a day ago

Zoho is interesting in the sense that it is one of the few email providers I know of that lets you use a custom domain with one of their free plans.

Very startup friendly. Also free POP/IMAP, so you are not locked in.

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  • iosjunkie 21 hours ago

    That used to be the case. You can still get free email hosting, but POP/IMAP needs a paid plan.

    Reply View 0 replies
  • vee-kay a day ago

    Zoho's plans are very affordable and friendly for startups.

    That affordability, quality and service is why Indian government is migrating its IT dependencies from Microsoft to Zoho.

    Reply View 0 replies