Collanos Blog

The term Unified Collaboration is being used by analysts, bloggers, and reporters to describe the convergence of instant messaging, voice services (one-to-one calls and conference calls), web conferencing (presentation sharing, screen sharing, remote control desktop), presence awareness, and team workspaces (team workspaces, file sharing, discussions, tasks, calendars).

The belief is that the use of a single integrated tool that allows teams to leverage the benefits of all these different collaboration components will allow teams to become more efficient and productive. A recent survey conducted by AV Interactive, a video conferencing network supplier, “showed that 80% of respondents said that communication was the most important element to keep a business running efficiently and 75% agreed that collaborative communication technologies would contribute towards more productive home or remote working.”

Current Unified Collaboration offerings are very expensive, $60-200 per user - costs that only wealthy enterprises can afford. For small businesses, ad-hoc teams, and consumers the Unified Collaboration vision is very expensive. Existing collaboration platforms used to share documents require customers to pay for storage space, limit the number of workspaces a team can create, and limit the number of users a team can invite. Consequently, Unified Collaboration still remains a vision for these users who end up working with disjointed tools, expensive pricing options, tools lacking functionality, and restrictive collaboration platforms.

Helping consumers, ad-hoc teams, and small businesses become more productive and efficient is Collanos’ top priority. Starting next year we will release additional functionality to complement Collanos Workplace, this additional functionality will become our first step towards providing customers with a unified collaboration platform. We will start out by releasing a soft phone with an instant messaging client that will allow Collanos users to call and video call each other, conduct conference calls, send SMS, and instant message other Collanos users and contacts who are part of other instant message networks such as Yahoo, Google, AOl, and MSN. This first release will focus on unifying the instant messaging and voice components, which many analysts refer to as Unified Messaging.

Our goal is to then follow-up this release and enhance the Collanos Workplace and allow team members to easily click a button in their Workplace and start a conference call with all their team members. Also, users can right click on a team member from there team member list and choose to call, sms, video call, or invite a team member to a conference call. The introduction of this new unified messaging functionality into Collanos Workplace will mark the beginning of the Collanos Unified Collaboration Platform.

After releasing the Collanos Unified Collaboration Platform we will introduce a web conferencing offering. Once we reach this milestone, we will become the first vendor to deliver a complete cross-platform Unified Collaboration Platform that is designed and priced for small businesses, ad-hoc teams, and consumers. By leveraging Collanos Workplace’s peer-to-peer infrastructure, consumers will benefit from all the unified collaboration functionality, while being free of the limitations that many hosting offerings impose. In addition, all of the team’s data will be stored locally by each member, further insuring user security and privacy, which is unmatched by hosted providers.

Future releases of our Unified Collaboration platform will include tighter, seamless integration with Workplace and application interfaces that will allow integration with other solutions. Also, next year we are planning to add a team calendar, videoconferencing, and web-access coupled with the ongoing flow of new features that will build upon the unified collaboration platforms capabilities. We are determined and diligently working to deliver you the Unified Collaboration Platform. With Collanos Workplace being recently released and now with our upcoming release of the Unified Collaboration Platform, Collanos is leading the ‘consumerization’ wave that will shake up the collaboration industry.

Share with Shareomatic! | View blog reactions

Collanos Workplace 1.0 GA (i.e. General Availability) is ready for download. Here’s our press release…

Zurich, San Francisco, December 14, 2006 — Today Collanos Software announced the release of Collanos Workplace 1.0 for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux. Its p2p collaboration client software addresses the collaboration and teamwork needs of small teams. Users can create workspaces, share documents, start discussions, and assign tasks to team members.

“Workplace 1.0 is our basic software offering which we will always provide to internet users for free. Collanos Software becomes the first vendor to provide a free p2p cross-platform collaboration solution that goes beyond free email and instant messaging solutions. Home users and companies can now invest their money in activities that further increase the value of their teamwork,”

commented Franco Dal Molin, President and CTO.

Collanos unveiled plans to up-sell premium services in later versions: new software features that will accelerate, secure, and enhance a customer’s collaboration experience. Ultimately, Collanos Software aims to become a global-networking hub that will assist Collanos Software’s users to connect with others and to start and manage new projects.

Collanos is able to provide this free benefit to millions of potential users because it is built on a reliable open source p2p infrastructure. Juan Carlos Soto, Sun Microsystems vice president, Software, said:

“We are thrilled to see Collanos’ product applying JXTA p2p technology to automate and synchronize team collaboration. Teams can now securely share files and other resources in a trusted, cooperative, and highly available p2p network. Using Java and JXTA technologies, Collanos has created a platform independent, and a secure p2p collaboration software that strengthens teams and the ideas they create.”

During the six-months Beta program, downloads of Collanos Workplace p2p teamwork software surged steadily, thus generating great anticipation among users and industry observers.

Collanos Workplace 1.0 for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux is now available to download at Collanos.

Share with Shareomatic! | View blog reactions

Zürich/San Francisco, 14. Dezember 2006 - Collanos Software gibt die sofortige Verfügbarkeit von Collanos Workplace 1.0 bekannt. Die Software für Windows, Mac OS X und Linux ist auf die Bedürfnisse von kleineren Gruppen ausgerichtet und ermöglicht eine effiziente Zusammenarbeit in organisations- und plattformübergreifenden Teams. Die kostenlos erhältliche Software steht per sofort unter http://www.collanos.com zum Download bereit.

Mit Collanos Workplace 1.0 liefert das Unternehmen einen plattformübergreifenden Software Client zur Zusammenarbeit in verteilten Teams, mit dem sicher auf gemeinsame Informationen wie Kontakte, Team-Diskussionen, Dokumente, Teamkalender, Aufgaben und Projektinformationen zugegriffen werden kann. Dabei muss keine aufwändige Server-Infrastruktur unterhalten werden.

“Workplace 1.0 ist unser Basisangebot, welches wir Anwendern heute und auch in Zukunft kostenlos zur Verfügung stellen werden. Mit diesem Angebot ist Collanos das erste Softwareunternehmen, das eine plattformübergreifende Collaboration Lösung anbietet, welche mehr bietet als bloss Instant Messaging und Email. Gerade Teams mit Mac oder Linux Anwendern haben lange auf eine solche Lösung gewartet. Heimanwender und Unternehmen können mit dem Einsatz von Workplace 1.0 ihre Produktivität ohne finanziellen Aufwand markant erhöhen”,

kommentiert Franco Dal Molin, Gründer und Chief Technology Officer, Collanos Software AG.

Das Unternehmen gibt weiter bekannt, dass es gemeinsam mit Partnern in naher Zukunft kostenpflichtige Premium Erweiterungen auf den Markt bringen wird, welche zusätzliche Teamwork-Funktionen beinhalten wird. Collanos hat sich zudem zum Ziel gesetzt, eine Art globaler Networking Hub zu werden, welcher Anwendern dabei hilft, sich mit Anderen virtuell zu treffen, um gemeinsam Projekte zu starten.

Dadurch, dass Collanos Workplace auf einer zuverlässigen Open Source Peer-to-Peer Infrastruktur aufbaut, können potenziell Millionen von Benutzern profitieren. Juan Carlos Soto, Vice President Software bei Sun Microsystems, meint:

“Wir sind begeistert, dass Collanos JXTA Peer-to-Peer Technologie für die Automatisierung und Synchronisation ihrer Lösung nutzt. Damit können die Teams in einem sehr zuverlässigen Peer-to-Peer Netzwerk sicher Informationen austauschen. Indem Collanos Java und JXTA Technologien anwendet, hat das Unternehmen eine plattformunabhängige, sichere und netzwerkunabhängige Software geschaffen, die Teams die Zusammenarbeit massiv erleichtert.”

Das Programm wurde in den letzten sechs Monaten mittels eines öffentlichen Beta-Programms erprobt. Stetig ansteigende Download-Zahlen zeigen die grosse Erwartungshaltung unter Benutzern wie Marktexperten.

Share with Shareomatic! | View blog reactions

You asked - we delivered! With the release of our latest version of Collanos Workplace, 1.0.0.10, Collanos is now also audio-enabled.

From now on you will be sound alerted when you receive new content, get pinged by other team members or when other certain actions take place in your workspaces.

Get a flavor of it (double click the arrow)…

[audio:whistling.mp3]

This alone may not be the breaking news you would expect in a blog posting (although for Peter and me it is like music to our ears) but the release of audio alerts is one of many features being introduced recently by our highly committed and proficient development teams Musala Soft in Bulgaria and Qarea in Ukraine.

Collanos Workplace, our free P2P team collaboration solution, has gone through accelerated growth stages (yes, we are on growth hormones) over the last few months from being in early Beta to the current state of being able to smell the scent of the upcoming GA (General Availability).

Almost every two weeks our team has churned out a new release with new features and enhancements, further strengthening our position as the leading cross-platform (Windows, Mac, and Linux) team collaboration solution.

Wouldn’t this sound better if it were coming from our users? It sure would, so let me share some of it with you:

Since using Collanos we’ve been able to reduce the overhead load per work-unit by at least 20-25% which translates into a significant productivity gain (Gottfried Ryser, Switzerland).

We see the p2p based solution help us more to manage the daily workload in the projects with less effort than a server based one. Also means less emails with attachments. Now all projects have their space in Collanos (Christoph eBell, Switzerland).

Months I’ve been looking for a way to share documents with colleagues. We often update these documents and then send them around using E-mail. Efficiency has left the building…(Michiel Masselink, Netherlands)

If you spend most of your time working with one or more teams, and your email inbox is littered with endless out of context emails and spam, Collanos Workplace will cure many of your pains.

If you’re as skeptical as I am of what you read on blogs published by us vendors, take us for a test-drive! The keys are inside, no payment required. And while you’re at it, if you see me (Gil Heiman) online, invite me to a test workspace. I never decline an invite!

Last but not least, pump of the volume! Got to love that noise.

Share with Shareomatic! | View blog reactions

Company: jc ebell research - Bern, Switzerland (HQ)

Members: Jackie Ebell – Founder & principal knowledge worker, Chris Ebell - Co-Founder & principal knowledge worker, Sigi Hauert – Partner & language specialist, plus other partners in a growing global network.

Team Context: Consulting

Team Background: jc ebell research specializes in helping European Union and Swiss corporations, governments, legal institutions, and programs write, translate, enhance, research, and edit their mission-critical documents to get the desired impact. The company specializes in many different areas, some of which include: bio-safety, security, technology, science, and digital content. Leveraging jc ebell research’s services, organizations can increase their chances of receiving grants, having their policies accepted, meeting their deadlines, and influencing decisions.

Team Challenge: Teams at jc ebell research need to be able to share, discuss, translate and edit time-sensitive, confidential, and complex documents with internal and external members across the globe. Most of the teams’ work is done remotely while team members travel to customer sites in China, Korea, South East Asia, and Europe. Being online all the time is not always possible for team members so documents, discussions, notes, and messages need to be available both online and offline.

In the past the company tried using Google writely, .mac internet drive, and email. They struggled with writely’s and .mac’s constraint to be always online when working on documents. Email provided offline access, but was not the ideal collaboration tool since countless emails were constantly being exchanged and finding the latest document version, team members’ comments, and supplementary documents was always a challenge. Additionally, being spread out across three different collaboration systems while trying to complete a document, made things even harder to manage.

jc ebell research decided to find a single collaboration tool that could keep the entire team well-organized, support Windows and Mac environments, allow offline access to project content and, was affordable. In addition, the tool had to support customer participation, ensure confidentiality of information and content security, and did not require additional costs as storage requirements increased.

Solution: Jc ebell research found out about Collanos through the web and since then they stopped looking for other solutions. Collanos allows teams at jc ebell research to create a workspace and store all the project’s notes, discussions, documents, tasks, and members in one location that is accessible also offline. Changes and additions made to a workspace would transparently get synchronized among team members. Working in the workspace was very easy to do and no longer required the use of multiple collaboration applications.

A member of the jc ebell research team shared this experience with the Collanos team:

While working on a project I was traveling from Zurich, Switzerland to Singapore in an internet enabled Singapore Airlines flight. Jackie a member of my team was in Adelboden, Switzerland working from a ski resort, while Sigi, another member, was in Brussels, Belgium. We all had our Collanos Workplace open and were collaborating on a customer project that was eventually completed somewhere over India. Collanos supports our non-conventional business setup and makes us more productive and profitable, while having fun.

With Collanos software it is possible for us to integrate our clients in an open environment if they wish. They have immediate access to the status of their documents in the process and they can give guidance at any time. It’s completely transparent. It’s the concept of open innovation.

Results: Collanos enabled jc ebell research to consolidate their collaboration tools into one system while allowing them to have the offline access and flexibility they needed to work as a remote team. The jc ebell research team is a perfect example of how Collanos can help consulting teams become more efficient without requiring them to change the way they work or spending a lot of money on collaboration tools. In the end, efficiency and reduced costs increase a company’s bottom line and these are the results jc ebell research saw with Collanos or in their words:

Since using Collanos we’ve been able to reduce the overhead load per work-unit by at least 20-25% which translates into a significant productivity gain.

Collanos Team Spotlight Series, a new Collanos community initiative, highlights each time a new team; who they are and why they have chosen Collanos Workplace as their team collaboration of choice.

If you are interested in having your team take part in this program please contact us.

Share with Shareomatic! | View blog reactions

Collanos Workplace users are a diverse group of individuals and businesses, representing a wide-range of industries, organizations and nationalities.

Each team using our application finds their unique and creative way to use Collanos Workplace to serve their team-specific collaboration needs.

Even we at Collanos were taken by surprise on how students, marketers, designers, researchers, faculty, priests, volunteers, etc. have adopted our solutions in such original ways. The one thing all these users share in common is the need for a simple, secure and powerful team collaboration solution - like no other.

Collanos Team Spotlight, a new Collanos community initiative, will highlight each time a new team; who they are and why they have chosen Collanos Workplace as their team collaboration of choice.

If you are interested in having your team take part in this program please contact gil.heiman AT collanos Dotcom.

Coming Soon: Team Spotlight Series #1- jc ebell research

Share with Shareomatic! | View blog reactions

Gartner (NYSE: IT), the largest technology analyst company in the world, predicts Collanos’ type business model will become “the most significant trend affecting information technology during the next ten years.”

The Collanos’ type consumerization business model focuses on providing consumers with a collaboration platform that will allow internet home users, university faculty, small businesses, and inter-enterprise users to benefit from the collaboration tools that only enterprises have been able to provide at an expensive price to their employees.

By differentiating ourselves from other Collaboration vendors who require the use of a server, utilize a resource expensive development model, depend on longer release lifecycles, and have their own agenda that forces the need for further infrastructure investments, we gain a strategic advantage that allows us to deliver to the consumers the collaboration tools they need at prices they can afford.

David Mitchell Smith, Gartner Vice President and Gartner Fellow, predicts that our approach “will affect every enterprise.” Collanos’ approach is much like Wi-Fi’s, smart mobile phone’s, pc’s, voice over IP call’s and conference call’s, instant message’s, and the internet’s approach. Each of these was quickly adopted by consumers who benefited from the use of these technologies in their homes, families, clubs, and organizations. Consumers then took these technologies to work and caused the viral spread that later led to enterprise adoption.

Already in our beta offering, we see Collanos Workplace being not only demanded by ad-hoc teams, but by teams in the enterprise. Enterprise users refuse to constrain themselves to their current email and server based collaboration tools. Collanos, starting with its peer-to-peer Collanos Workplace, will soon provide consumers with a complete set of collaboration tools and like that create greater demand for Collanos in the enterprise.

Collanos prides itself in helping internet teamworkers and leading the evolution of the consumerization of collaboration technologies. We do not believe collaboration tools should only be available for the wealthy enterprise but should be available to everyone both outside and inside of the enterprise.

Share with Shareomatic! | View blog reactions

Often I am asked what an “Angel Consultant” is, since this is the term commonly used to describe my (as well as others) role in the company. Angel Investors is a coined term in the start-up world; however, Angel Consultants is less prevalent. The one thing that Angel Consultants and Angel Investors share in common is the desire for the company to succeed in the long term as each is invested in their own way. Whereas investors put their money on the line, consultants, such as me, forsake a steady stream of income and benefits for worthless pieces of paper dubbed ‘equity’ similar to a lottery ticket.

People who like the idea of working without pay at a startup without revenue, funding, or even a fully formed business plan in exchange for what basically amounts to a lottery ticket.” It’s the chance to work for a small, high-growth tech company that could either go bankrupt or turn into the next Google.
(http://patentbaristas.com/archives/000278.php)

Bootstrapping in Collanos takes on many shapes and forms, however, its end product is not only measured in the form of input vs. output. Indeed maintaining a low cash run rate is the most explicit goal but by grouping a team of committed people, additional factors contribute to the likelihood of the start-up to mature to a sustainable company.

As I make my final stretch getting back to San Francisco, following my first trip to Collanos HQ in Zurich, Switzerland, I cannot help but reflect on the unique circumstances of this truly global start-up. We are currently a spread out team of multi-national Collanos members with first-rate outsourcing teams in Bulgaria and Ukraine (including a designer in Indonesia). Our European investors all contribute more than just cash to keep us pushing forward. Call it ‘smart money’, these investors, each independently, contribute their time, contacts and a sundry of services that allow us to keep our run rate low, morale high and future outlook very promising.

On my trip to Zurich I was fortunate to take shelter at our CEO’s countryside home with the gracious hospitality of his family. Bootstrapping 101? Yes and No. Clearly the cost savings of a two week stay in Switzerland are significant but this was not the reason I was residing in the boss’ home. Staying in his home was a reflection on the cultural diversity and team commitment inherent in Collanos. How often do you hear of an American company hosting members in each others’ homes? Not often, if ever. For my European colleagues it comes so naturally. Even to me, with my Israeli roots – where there typically is no clear separation between work colleagues and personal relationships, this was a very pleasant surprise. The intensity of the gung-ho start up mode and the 18-hour work days allow us to leverage the remote time zone differences, progress in ‘internet’ speed and complement each others’ skills wherever needed.

Don’t get me wrong, Swiss-American work cultures clash quite often. I saw this first hand and very likely will see more of it as we evolve. However, the sincere desire to build trust amongst the core team via strong personal relationships, lays the foundation to keep the team intact and not let differences (and there are quite a few) distract us from pursuing our common goal.

Share with Shareomatic! | View blog reactions

Since we released the beta 1 in late June 2006, we have fixed 180 bugs and issues in the product.

Previously we have been keeping you informed by posting occasional updates to our forum. From now on, we will be publishing release notes with each update or release of Collanos Workplace. This way you can easily find out what problems we fixed and on what issues we are still working. Our goal is to keep you informed regarding our product and let you know that we are listening to your requests and acting on them.

We appreciate the time you take to give us feedback.

Sincerely,

Steven Tedjamulia
Head of Product Management
Steven DOT tedjamulia AT collanos DOT com

Share with Shareomatic! | View blog reactions

Two weeks ago, our global startup made it to the Swiss top 50 venture list published by Cash Private Equity Magazine 2006. We were competing for the number one spot with other companies such as biotech and medical equipment ventures.

This successful achievement is another milestone Collanos has achieved and we are grateful to all of you who have helped us receive this important ranking.This success is an even bigger achievement because Switzerland’s economy was recently ranked #1 in the Global Competitiveness Report of the World Economic Forum in front of Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Singapore and the United States. Switzerland scored highest in many categories; some of the most relevant included:

• Quality of its research institutes
• Cooperation between Universities and companies
• Education of the work force
• Modern infrastructure (transportation and
  telecommunications)
• Quality of its political institutions

Switzerland’s ranking further validates Collanos’ global strategy and our decision to start and base our company in Switzerland. Our belief is that the internet has enabled startups such as Collanos to go global from the beginning. We are already gaining many customers from Europe, Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the US.

Basing our company in the most competitive global country, focusing on a global market, and leveraging Swiss quality engineering with a global development model gives Collanos a strategic footing that allows us to globally differentiate ourselves from our competitors and serve a broader base of customers faster and more effectively.

Global Competitiveness Report

Share with Shareomatic! | View blog reactions