Biocon founder Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw has said the global Microsoft outage has created an unexpected opening for Zoho, the Chennai-based software company led by Sridhar Vembu, to position itself as an alternative backup management information system (MIS) for India Inc.
In a post on X, formerly Twitter, and in subsequent replies to users, Mazumdar-Shaw said the disruption highlighted the value of having an alternative backup MIS for Indian businesses. She described Zoho as a homegrown option that is well placed to benefit from such events. “An unexpected opportunity for Zoho to be an alternate backup MIS for India Inc given such unforeseen events,” she wrote.
A backup for India Inc
When a user asked why Zoho, Mazumdar-Shaw acknowledged that it was the only homegrown system she was aware of. Another user questioned why a global outage was needed to create an opportunity for Indian companies to “build our own.” She replied: “It’s always about events that create opportunities.”
Her comments came as the outage disrupted email and other business services, with people in more than 70 countries, including India, reporting disruption, Downdetector data showed. Microsoft’s Windows operating system and productivity apps remain the top choice for many businesses and public institutions, and the disruption renewed criticism over the risk of a single provider holding so much power.
Microsoft says services restored
Microsoft said on Saturday that it had fully restored its flagship software and ended an outage that paralyzed government offices, traders and businesses around the world. In a service health status update on its website, the company said all products were operational and that a backlog of email messages had been processed. It said it had restored service to affected customers and regions.
The Microsoft 365 software bundle, which has more than 450 million commercial users, was at the center of the disruption that began on Friday.
Can Zoho replace Microsoft?
The outage alone does not mean Zoho can fully replace Microsoft 365. Questions remain about Zoho’s capacity to handle Microsoft-scale workloads and the complexity of replacing deeply embedded productivity workflows.
Some users responding to Mazumdar-Shaw’s posts noted that Zoho may not have the required capacity to handle loads that Microsoft does. Others pointed to free alternatives, while some said they would continue with Microsoft products in the larger scheme of things.
William Blair & Co. analyst Jason Ader wrote in a note that the incident was unlikely to meaningfully change Microsoft’s competitive position in the near term, given the high cost and complexity of replacing deeply embedded productivity workflows. Longer term, however, it could make some customers more receptive to alternatives, particularly Google Workspace and emerging productivity offerings from Anthropic unveiled earlier that week, he said.
The episode may still make some customers more open to alternatives, even if a near-term shift is not expected.
Government email migration
India has already moved a large part of its official email infrastructure to a Zoho-based platform. In a written reply to the Lok Sabha last December, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) said nearly 12.68 lakh official email accounts across ministries and departments had been migrated to a Zoho-based platform. Of these, 7.45 lakh accounts belonged to central government employees.
The migration was carried out through the National Informatics Centre (NIC), which remains the mandated provider of official email services for government ministries and departments, Jitin Prasada, minister of state for MeitY, said in the response.
Zoho Mail is a secure email service launched by Zoho Corporation, a Chennai-based multinational software services company co-founded by Vembu and Tony Tomas in 1996. The company has built a suite of business software products that compete with global productivity and collaboration platforms.