Zoho’s new messaging app Arattai will soon be publish its messaging protocols, revealed company co-founder Sridhar Vembu via an X post on September 30.
Vembu stated that he was in discussions with Sharad Sharma of iSPIRT, a think-tank that works on the technical aspects of India’s Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI).
“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,” said Vembu.
For context, messaging protocols are essentially the rules by which information is sent between two devices.
Vembu appeared to be arguing that Arattai needed to be an interoperable messaging app, which refers to the ability of one software to work with another. India’s Unified Payments Interface (UPI) is an example of this, as users can use any payments app to conduct transactions with any other app.
Interoperable messaging platforms are ones where users can communicate with each other despite using separate apps, similar to email services.
How Would It Work?
Speaking to MediaNama, Sharad Sharma explained that the proposed interoperable ecosystem will be built along the lines of DPI, with a common back-end that supports many front-end apps. They also planned a “plug-and-play” system for AI agents and payment apps.
Sharma also acknowledged that popular messaging platforms like WhatsApp or Signal might not be compatible with this infrastructure.
“Our goal is to have an open protocol, just like UPI, where anybody can build apps on top of it. Whether existing apps will embrace this system and choose to become a part of it or not, it’s too early to say. We hope that they will,” he remarked. Sharma saw the initiative as an extension of India’s DPI into the domain of messaging, which was important to ensure India’s “digital autonomy” in software.
However, there are still a number of things that need to be taken care of. MediaNama had previously pointed out that Arattai lacked the end-to-end encryption (E2EE) which made messaging on WhatsApp secure. And this feature might become more difficult to implement with multiple front-end apps.
For context, end-to-end encryption (E2EE) is a cryptographic process where a message is scrambled at the sender’s end and unscrambled only when it reaches the receiver. Here, only the two people communicating can read the message, not even the platform facilitating the service.
When asked about E2EE, Sharma admitted that it was something they were still working on, and asserted that the duo planned to offer it on an interoperable basis for their project.
Background on Arattai:
Zoho had launched Arattai in 2021, however the app seemed to lay dormant for several years before suddenly taking off last week. It received support from Union Minister for Education Dharmendra Pradhan and IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw, with the latter also promoting Zoho’s suite of office software.
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