Collanos Blog

SAN JOSE, CALIF. – Feb. 20, 2007 – FutureWorks PR, an award-winning New Media PR agency, announced that it has joined Collanos Software’s global network of marketing and public relations teams. FutureWorks will collaborate with Collanos’ lead agency, Jenni Kommunikation, www.jeko.com and will head their media, analyst, and blogger relations in North America.

In the past, premium collaboration services have been primarily targeted at enterprise organizations. Collanos becomes the first company to offer free collaboration solutions to all internet users, anywhere in the world. Teams who were unable to deploy expensive collaborative services can now instantly embrace Collanos Workplace without any dependence on servers, IT personnel, or license fees. Collanos users can select their choice of operating system, take their data offline, and securely work together on team projects.

“FutureWorks has earned an impressive reputation for navigating the convergence between traditional, social, and new media landscapes. We look forward to working with them to reach the teams that can greatly benefit from the use of Collanos Workplace,” said Peter Helfenstein, CEO of Collanos.

“Collanos is providing teams with free Collaboration tools that will help them become more productive on their own without requiring an investment in enterprise-class software and administrative support,” said Brian Solis, principal of FutureWorks. “Collanos will truly benefit many, and we will do what it takes to help them share the benefits with the masses,”

About Collanos Software
By leveraging open-source technologies, open standards, the familiarity of existing tools, and a global development model, Collanos delivers a friendly, all inclusive team-based solution that combines the benefits of classic client/server, web, and peer-to-peer architectures. Collanos was founded in November 2003 and has offices in San Francisco and Zurich, Switzerland.

Collanos Workplace can be downloaded for free from www.collanos.com.
More information: www.collanos.com, blog.collanos.com.

About FutureWorks, Inc.
With offices in Silicon Valley and San Francisco, FutureWorks, www.future-works.com, partners with market leaders and emerging companies to increase visibility, spark conversations and customer-pull, cultivate markets and create new opportunities that are necessary to expand business.

The agency’s specialty lies in its ability to understand technology and in turn, present market-specific, real-world solutions for specific markets and people. FutureWorks combines PR, social tools, and grassroots marketing for intelligent, results-driven communications programs that impact the bottom line.

Contact:
Lisa Christopher
Lisa [at] future-works.com
408-428-0895 Ext. 106

Collanos Workplace releases version 1.0.2 of its innovative P2P software for virtual teams

Zurich, February 8, 2007 – Collanos Software now offers its free cross-company, cross-platform collaboration solution in German.

Collanos Workplace allows teams to work together over the internet more efficiently, flexibly, and securely. They can access shared information such as contacts, discussions, documents, team calendars, tasks, and projects. Now, users can switch between English and German as Collanos takes the first step into localizing its global software.

“Tens of thousands of users have already installed Collanos Workplace on their computers, and every month we see a 130% growth rate,” said Peter Helfenstein, CEO of Collanos.

With offices in Switzerland and USA, Collanos expects to further accelerate this rapid growth with the German version.

“Over 25% of our users originate from Switzerland, Germany and Austria,” says Helfenstein. “With the German version, we will become even stronger in the Germanic region.”

Typical Collanos users are MBA students, small to mid-size businesses, non-profit organizations, and mobile work groups in large consulting companies seeking cross-organizational collaboration solutions. Users all commonly share the need for a flexible collaboration platform that spans several locations in order to optimize the workflow with colleagues, customers, providers, partners, and remote employees.

These users require that all team members have access to the latest version of documents and that all project-related discussions, emails, and other content are easily accessible in a shared environment. Since Collanos supports all major operating systems, users can always invite additional members to their workspaces.

“As a small company with globally dispersed employees and countless partners, we suffered from overflowing email inboxes and endless attachments,” recalls Alex Fries, CEO of PURE SWISS Inc. in San Francisco. “Thanks to Collanos, we are now able to work as a ‘virtual team’ in a secure, structured environment, and in the context of our teams. Without Collanos, we would have had to invest in an expensive and complex collaboration system limiting us to a closed network.”

Reto Hartinger, a Swiss Internet expert and organizer of IT conferences, believes the free software has great promise, “Although Collanos is not yet as powerful as some of its older siblings, Lotus Notes, Sharepoint, and Groove, it will rapidly gain market share especially with innovative companies and collaboration within teams with high member turnover.” Hartinger also sees huge potential with lawyers, software developers, advertising and marketing agencies, and universities.

Peter Helfenstein added, “The German version was translated entirely by volunteers in our user community. This will happen with upcoming languages as well. Collanos will work with the community to maintain these versions.”

The software is available for free and can be downloaded at www.collanos.com.

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.

Collanos Software releases its free solution making Internet-based teamwork available for everybody. Leading MBA programs are among the first to adopt.

San Francisco – June 19, 2006 – Collanos Software, provider of software solutions and services that enable teamwork beyond organizational boundaries, released today “Collanos Workplace 1.0 Beta”, the first commercial and publicly available version of its free flagship application. The software is available to download at http://www.collanos.com.

Geared for wide-scale adoption by Internet users worldwide, Collanos Workplace has been designed to meet the requirements of modern mobile and dispersed knowledge workers. While existing collaboration solutions rely upon web-based platforms, Collanos’ Peer-to-Peer solution addresses the growing need of users for an online and offline solution that transparently synchronizes information between all team members.

Collanos is initially being adopted by MBA programs as their teamwork environment. The company is involved in pilot programs with leading MBA universities across the United States and Europe. Consulting, research and marketing teams are following track, using Collanos to manage their unique teamwork settings.

“MBA students typically spend more than 70% of their time working on multiple team projects”, said Peter Helfenstein, CEO of Collanos Software. “Not wasting time anymore on congested email inboxes or complex server-based solutions means simply more time for the team to concentrate on quality deliverables.”

To the question: “Is Collanos a Web 2.0 company?” Franco Dal Molin, Collanos’ Founder and President said, “Yes and no. While it has all the key Web 2.0 attributes, we are not just another web-based collaboration solution. The hybrid P2P platform, a matchless solution available for Windows, Mac and Linux, offers our users the best of both worlds. That’s Peer-to-Peer 2.0.”

Collanos’ goals are to sign-up 100,000 active users worldwide within the next twelve months and harness the internet to create a solution that truly reflects how 21st century teams work.

San Francisco – March 23, 2006 – Collanos Software, a provider of software solutions that enable teamwork beyond enterprise boundaries, has appointed Peter Helfenstein as the company’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO). He will be responsible for Collanos worldwide activities.

Mr. Helfenstein joins Collanos with more than 20 years of experience working for international software and consulting companies in Europe, including, most recently, as Country Manager of Novell and Cambridge Technology Partners, Switzerland. Previously he served as General Manager Southern Europe for Kintana, Regional VP and Country Manager for Sterling Software and Knowledgeware in Germany, France and Switzerland and various management roles at IBM Switzerland. He has extensive experience in launching international start-up companies as well as managing global and well-established organizations.

“Peter’s first-class sales and people-management skills, combined with a successful track record in building international partner networks, perfectly complement our management team. He will be instrumental as we launch Collanos in the marketplace and release our first production application in May 2006.” said President and Founder Franco Dal Molin.

“I am excited to join Collanos at this critical phase”, said Peter Helfenstein. “It is time for professionals to finally give up email as the primary tool for team collaboration beyond the enterprise. We believe that our innovative solution will be adopted rapidly and enable teams all over the globe to work together much more efficiently and in an entirely new way. That’s what I am here to focus on.”