In lieu of the Salesforce.com acquisition for ExactTarget for $2.5 billion, Tom Taulli  interviews Sridhar Vembu, founder and CEO of one of the pioneering companies in the space, Zoho.

Zoho isn’t just CRM anymore… they include project management, web conferencing and invoicing.  Up to 25 different cloud applications.

From http://investorplace.com/ipo-playbook/interview-zoho-ceo-talks-cloud-industry-salesforce/ :

Q: Can you give us some background on Zoho?

A: Zoho provides an integrated suite of applications for business in the cloud, with depth and breadth that is unmatched by any other player. We have been consistently profitable, with over 1,600 employees worldwide. We intend to remain private, so we do not disclose financial information.

Q: How does Zoho compete with big companies like Salesforce.com?

A: We compete in two ways: We differentiate ourselves in our product breadth, depth and coverage. For example, Zoho CRM integrates email in a very deep way, which no other company does as well. And, Zoho believes that the full suite — from CRM to document management to marketing to project management to accounting — should be contextually and deeply integrated. Unlike Salesforce, we have a very strong R&D strategy to deliver this integration. We believe this strategy works better long-term compared to their “acquire and bolt-on” approach.

Q: What’s your opinion on Salesforce.com and the mega-deal? Do you expect more dealmaking?

A: We do not believe in these blockbuster acquisitions, which we think destroy value. Salesforce’s balance sheet is one of the worst in the technology industry. Keep in mind that the typical technology companies does carries very little debt. Although, we do expect more dealmaking in the cloud because Salesforce’s strategy is perceived to be the way to do it.

Q: What about traditional companies that are moving into the cloud — such as with IBM’s latest deal?

A: IBM has been very strategic about areas they get out of (PCs) and areas they get into (cloud). I believe we will see many attempts to emulate IBM by other traditional companies, but they do have unique advantages in terms of depth of R&D that is hard to emulate.