Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw Sees Zoho Chance After Microsoft Outage
Biocon founder Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw said a Microsoft outage that disrupted Outlook and other services is an opportunity for Indian software firm Zoho. She urged Indian companies to keep domestic backups for essential systems. Users on X split over whether Zoho could handle the demand.
Biocon founder Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw said the Microsoft outage that disrupted access to services such as Outlook is an "unexpected opportunity" for Indian software company Zoho. Her comments, posted on X, urged Indian businesses to consider domestic backups. The Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw Microsoft outage post quickly drew a mixed response online.
Mazumdar-Shaw tagged Zoho in her post. "This is an unexpected opportunity for @Zoho to be an alternate backup MIS for India Inc given such unforeseen events," she wrote. MIS is short for management information system, the software companies use to run and track their operations.
A call for domestic backups
Her post called on Indian companies to keep domestic options for essential software and systems. She argued against relying entirely on global technology providers.
Zoho was founded by Sridhar Vembu. It sells business tools including email, office productivity and enterprise management software.
The outage has also led some users to ask whether Indian software companies can step in when major global platforms stop working.
Users split on Zoho
Reactions on X ran both ways. Some users backed the idea of greater reliance on Indian software. Others doubted that domestic companies could handle the scale of demand.
One user questioned the focus on a single firm. "Why Zoho alone? Moving from Microsoft is not going to be easy," the user wrote, adding that state and central government bodies should start using Zoho at least as a security measure.
Another user pointed to the danger of concentrated power. As the influence of a few global tech giants has grown, the user wrote, their failures bring "devastation on people and global economy." The same user called it challenging to get past big lobbies and help a domestic company succeed.
Doubters were blunt. "I doubt Zoho can handle so much traffic!" one comment read.
Another user raised the reliability of smaller providers. "Atleast we are confident Microsoft will be able to recover at some point," the user wrote. "If Zoho is to go down, we can be sure that the whole company will go down with it."
Some framed the issue as national security. One user said global services outages "can be misused to blackmail countries like India in case of War or Trade Sanctions."
Neither Zoho nor Vembu had responded to the post in the coverage reviewed.
