Zoho has expanded its Zoho One business software suite to include more than 50 apps, adding a wide range of capabilities around analytics, security management, and employee experience.

The vendor launched Zoho One in 2017 with the goal of providing access to a wider range of the applications across its extensive portfolio. The app suite costs$37 per employee per month when subscriptions are purchased annually for a customer's entire workforce; otherwise annual subscriptions are$90 per user per month.

On Tuesday, Zoho added a range of apps and services to the suite. Many of these are pre-existing Zoho apps that are available in Zoho One for the first time.

This includes five apps covering employee experience, productivity, and data analytics: Zoho Learn, a learning management tool; TeamInbox, a shared email inbox; Zoho Lens, an augmented reality app that enables remote assistance; DataPrep, a self-service data preparation and management tool; and Zoho Commerce, which contains components for building a retail website, accept payments, and more.

Zoho Lens, the company's augmented reality app, is now included with the Zoho One platform.

There are three new services within Zoho One: Org Dictionary, a central dictionary that aids consistent spellings of terms and employee names; Work Graph, which maps interactions between employees, resources, and systems; and a mobile application management (MAM) service for managing access on a range of devices.

There are also several platform enhancements, including embedded, conversational analytics; natural-language-powered enterprise search; a unified view of apps, services, and dashboards for employees; and a customizable dashboard with pre-built widgets to provide visibility across the organization.

Zoho said there are now 40,000 Zoho One customers, citing growth of 60% year-on-year during the pandemic, and up from 20,000 in 2019.

Zoho One offers conversational BI capabilities throughout the platform, with more than 1,500 pre-built analytics reports and dashboards.

For some businesses, Zoho's comprehensive approach to its software suite - which includes sales, marketing, HR, and finance apps, as well as productivity tools - can offer an advantage over integrating multiple point solutions, according to Holger Mueller, VP and principal analyst at Constellation Research.

"Allowing enterprises to get rid of integration of best-of-breed products has always been a powerful point," Mueller said. "As with all integrated suites, if the integration fits/works, it is great. If the functionality is not good enough, then there is integration work to do... but in general, Zoho has been above the 'good enough' limit consistently."

The expansion to Zoho One on Tuesday is the first major update to the suite since late 2019, when Zoho added a phone bridge system, a workflow management app, single sign-on, and a blockchain time-stamping feature for Zoho Sign.