Zoho is developing software for machine translation using Sanskrit : CEO Sridhar Vembu

• ByStartupStory     |    November 11, 2022

Major domestic software-as-a-service provider Zoho, whose yearly turnover has just surpassed $1 billion, is creating machine translation software utilizing Sanskrit as an intermediate layer. Machine translation is an algorithm that converts text or voice from one natural language to another.

“When translating between any two languages, you must first adhere to a standard framework. The objective here is to be as exact as possible. “Sanskrit is a highly exact and accurate language,” Sridhar Vembu, co-founder and chief executive officer of Zoho, said earlier this week at the company’s annual technology conference. “This seems to be common knowledge. It is not a new discovery, but no one seems to have successfully implemented it in software. And we will launch items using this technology… In the technology business, promising ideas are often discarded.

The co-founder of Zoho is developing the technology with a small technical team in the Tamil Nadu hamlet of Tenkasi. Since mid-2019, Vembu has been based in Tenkasi, where he has advocated for the development of educational and technical job prospects in rural parts of the nation. The Chennai-based software product firm has operations in more than 150 countries and has amassed more than 80 million users in its 25 years of business.

Even while Indian unicorns such as Byju’s, Udaan, Unacademy, and others have let off dozens of workers this year, Moneycontrol previously claimed that Zoho, which employs 11,000 people, might add more than 1,000 employees in the coming year. Fears of an economic downturn have also prompted global technological titans such as Stripe, Facebook, and Lyft to reduce headcount and halt recruiting. “The rate of expansion has slowed. You can see in all directions. We have a highly diverse product portfolio and provide the most cost-effective solution, but we are in an economic earthquake zone with tremors already present,” said Vembu.

About Zoho

The CEO of Zoho said that the company’s growth was driven by research and development, and that an increasing number of businesses were using Zoho’s apps, which contributed to the company’s success. The corporation views the Indian market as a bright light as businesses throughout the globe reduce their IT spending. It said that its domestic business grew at a CAGR of 65% over the previous five years and is now one of its top three markets. The corporation aims to invest twice as much in technologies such as blockchain and artificial intelligence over the next decade, with research and development expenses being three times those of marketing.

Vembu said on the margins of the technology conference, “At Zoho, we’ve always thought that engineers should be more humble.” “After all, we cannot generate additional food or energy by coding. Recent advances in our business, coupled with a rapidly worsening global economic picture, serve as a sobering reminder of our technological limitations.

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