Zoho Founder Sridhar Vembu Issues Clarification on Arattai

Zoho Founder Sridhar Vembu has been capturing headlines ever since the organisation’s free messaging app Arattai is being endorsed by top politicians of the country. Arattai, which has been made and developed in India, is aiming to capture the same market that is currently dominated by WhatsApp. “Arattai instant messaging app developed by Zoho is free, easy-to-use, secure, safe and ‘Made in India’. Guided by Hon’ble PM Shri Narendra Modji’s call to adopt Swadeshi, I appeal to everyone to switch to India-made apps for staying connected with friends and family,” said Dharmendra Pradhan, Minister of Education, Government of India.

Similarly, “Nothing beats the feeling of using a Swadeshi product. So proud to be on Arattai, a Made in India messaging platform that brings India closer. My team and I are on board and look forward to connecting with you here,” said Piyush Goyal, Union Minister of Commerce & Industry and MP, Government of India. Arattai has also recorded daily signups from 3,000 to 350,000 in just 3 days. “We have faced a 100x increase in Arattai traffic in 3 days (new sign-ups went vertical from 3K/day to 350K/day). We are adding infrastructure on an emergency basis for another potential 100x peak surge. That is how exponentials work. As we add a lot more infrastructure, we are also fine tuning and updating the code to fix issues as they arise. We have all-hands-on-deck working flat out. As a matter of fact, we had planned on a big release by November, with a lot of the features you expect, a huge capacity addition and a marketing push. And then it suddenly went vertical! We have a lot more planned for Arattai,  please give us some time. Thank you for your patience and support! Jai Hind,” said Vembu.

Also read: Indian Enterprises Shift from Reactive Monitoring to Strategic Observability – Gowrisankar Chinnayan, Zoho Corporation

However, Zoho founder Sridhar Vembu, has stated that Arattai aims at offering more services than WhatsApp. “On Arattai, we have initiated discussions with Sharad Sharma of iSpirt, the group that did the technical work to make UPI happen, to standardize and publish the messaging protocols. I am a huge fan of UPI and hugely respect the work the team did. Sharad is a good friend and he will guide us in this objective. These systems need to be interoperable like UPI and email and not closed like WhatsApp today. We do not want to be a monopoly ever. We are committed to that goal and we will work with iSpirt to make this happen,” he said.

Also read: Zoho Vikra App Launched on ONDC – Important Features

Zoho Founder Sridhar Vembu Clarifies that Arattai is Made and Hosted in India

Vembu has now also stated that since there were questions about where Zoho was developed, where the data was hosted and who hosts it, he wanted to issue certain clarifications around it. Vembu added:

1. All of the company’s products are developed in India, with its global headquarters located in Chennai. As a corporation headquartered in India, Zoho pays taxes in India on its global income. Today, the company operates in more than 80 countries and has established a strong presence in the US, which remains a significant market.
2. Indian customer data is hosted within India, specifically in Mumbai, Delhi, and Chennai, with plans to expand to Odisha soon. Globally, the company manages more than 18 data centers, each responsible for hosting data within its respective country or region, underscoring a commitment to local data residency.
3. All Zoho services are powered by hardware owned by the company and software frameworks it has developed, built on open-source technologies such as Linux OS and the Postgres database.
4. The company does not host its products on AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud. Specifically, the Arattai platform is not hosted on any of these services. While some of their nodes are used for regional switching to accelerate traffic, no data is stored within them. The company is also in the process of adding several new points of presence (POPs) to further enhance performance.
5. The Zoho Developer account on the App Store and Play Store lists a US office address because it was originally registered during the early days of these platforms by an employee in the US for testing purposes. This address was never updated thereafter.