As far as big tech companies go, Zoho is a bit different. Not only has it never taken any venture funding, it also offers more than 40 products that range from its online office suite to CRM and HR tools, email, workflow automation services, video conferencing, a bug tracker and everything in-between. You don't often hear about it, but the company has more than 45 million users worldwide and offices in the U.S., Netherlands, Singapore, Dubai, Yokohama and Beijing -- and it owns its data centers, too. Today, Zoho is launching a major update to its core office suite products: Zoho Writer, Sheet, Show and Notebooks. These tools are getting an infusion of AI -- under Zoho's "Zia" brand -- as well as new AppleTV and Android integrations and more.

Zoho is advancing its ambitions to become an "operating system for business" with the addition of artificial intelligence (AI) and sales process automation to its enterprise software suite. The company today is announcing the addition of AI to Zoho CRM and introducing Blueprint, a sales process automation platform. It's also upgrading two features to platforms: Zoho PhoneBridge, which connects a customer's PBX system to the Zoho CRM system, and SalesSignals, which provides real-time information about the activities of customers and prospects. Founded as AdventNet by Sridhar Vembu and Tony Thomas in 1996, Zoho -- which rebranded in 2009 -- today offers a suite of online productivity tools and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) applications. It is based in Chennai, India, with US headquarters in Pleasanton, Calif. Since last July, Zoho has opened two data centers in Europe -- one in Amsterdam and another in Dublin; gave its CRM platform a major facelift; introduced context-aware help desk software; launched a note-taking app for Mac users; and unveiled a payments solution that allows businesses to create customized, secure checkout pages.