Archive for the ‘Press Coverage’ Category

Sep 13 3 comments
Cloud Computing, Collaboration Software, Press Coverage, What's New

HyperOffice Recognized as Collaboration Market “Market Pillar” in Info Tech Research Study

Info Tech Research Group just put out a market study titled “Vendor Landscape Plus: Collaboration Platforms”. Info-Tech Research Group’s well known Vendor Landscape reports help enterprise IT decision-makers identify a short list of vendors for their IT programs depending on their needs. Vendors listed in the study make the cut only after fulfilling rigorous criteria.

We are pleased to report that HyperOffice is one of the solutions Info Tech covered this year, and has been recognized as a “market pillar” in the collaboration market. This is testimony to HyperOffice’s more than 10 years of experience and prominence in the collaboration market.

The is one of the most comprehensive studies on the collaboration software market in recent times. Apart from profiling prominent vendors in the market, it includes larger insights on emerging themes and trends in the collaboration market, maps user needs to type of solution, and includes primary end user research as well. One of the things that stood out for us is the growing importance of “social collaboration”.

It is a paid report, but we recommend it highly to analysts, writers and others who are interested in larger trends in the collaboration market, as well as to end users who want to assess collaboration vendors and chart out an implementation strategy.

Please do visit the Info Tech site and check out the study.

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Aug 25 0 comments
Cloud Computing, Collaboration Software, Online Collaboration, Press Coverage, What's New

Eminent industry analyst compares HyperOffice with Office 365, Google Apps and others

You hear us gush about HyperOffice’s socks-rocking capabilities all the time don’t you? But we are supposed to do that right?

How about hearing about HyperOffice from an eminent industry analyst who has been observing, writing about, and commenting on the information technology industry for more than 30 years? You can bet on one thing - they know their stuff.

We are super glad to tell our readers that Amy Wohl, widely known analyst and commentator on the cloud and collaboration markets just published a whitepaper comparing HyperOffice and other prominent solutions in the collaboration market.

Apart from a main feature comparison chart, Amy identifies other important parameters and themes in the collaboration market, and how different solutions compare of them. Amy has identified four major areas that companies looking for collaboration software must consider.

Features: What is the feature range and depth. Does the suite have the features you want?

Mobile Collaboration: Companies are increasingly looking to enable their mobile workforce with access to important business information on their iPhone, iPad, BlackBerry and other mobile devices. Does the solution support the features and devices you are looking at?

Social Collaboration: The “Enterprise 2.0” debate has been around for 2 years now, and the benefits of “social” tools in companies have been widely accepted. Does the collaboration suite you are looking at have social tools like profiles, wikis, and activity streams?

Integration: Since many collaboration solutions in the market have been built through acquisitions, it is important how well different features of collaboration software play together, as well as integration with commonly used software. How well integrated is the product? Does it work together with other software you use in your company – MS Word, Outlook etc?

To see how HyperOffice compares on these factors, please read Amy’s white paper - HyperOffice and the Online Collaboration Marketplace.

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Mar 04 0 comments
Collaboration Software, Online Collaboration, Press Coverage

All about Collaboration and Collaboration Suites

Ramon Ray from the Small Biz Tech Magazine, recently published a video from the Boston leg of the Small Business Tech Tour, held late last year. The video features a panel of experts in the online collaboration industry moderated by Laurie McCabe, including our own Shahab Kaviani at HyperOffice. The topic of discussion is “How to Listen Inside Your Company?“.

The discussion revolves around some basic issues related to collaboration and collaboration suites - What are collaboration suites? Why do you need them? What are the internal or external warning signs which tell you that you need a collaboration suite? How much effort does it require to implement one in your organization?

Someone like the blogger, who is deeply involved in the collaboration industry, might sometimes lose perspective on these basics. This discussion is a refreshing re-orientation, and a reminder of the critical need and palpable benefits of collaboration and collaboration suites in the day to day working of a company in the new business environment.

SMBs will instantly relate to the discussion because it starts from their daily operational needs, and then justifies the use of collaboration software to satisfy those needs. This video is also a great introduction for SMBs who may have heard a lot of background noise about collaboration software, but want to find more, and beginning to ask critical questions like - are collaboration suites for me? is now the right time?

The video:-

What are Collaboration Suites?

Every company utilizes some tools to work together with people inside and outside the organization - IM, web conferencing, email, document management etc. Rather than having scattered tools, and having problem linking different pieces of collaboration, collaboration suites combine all of these tools into a single integrated suite accessible over the web. HyperOffice is one of the leading evangelists of fully integrated communication and collaboration tools.

Why are the signs that my company needs collaboration tools?

1) If you are a small business which notices that it is going to pass the 2-3 office location mark, rather than setting up costly servers in house to enable employees to share information, it may be more efficient to simply subscribe for an online collaboration suite.

2) As a company increasingly gets work done from outside contractors, who are deeply involved in its work, using an online collaboration suite to enable collaboration and information sharing is in order. This makes sense since you have no control over the contractor’s tech environment, and collaboration suites require no more than a web browser to be used by either party.

3) If a company finds that everyone’s inboxes are increasingly unmanageable due to emails being used for scheduling, document attachments being sent back and forth, task assignments and so on, it makes sense to move these collaborative needs to collaboration tools designed specifically for those purposes.

People are just too addicted to email. How do I garner adoption for a collaboration suite in my company?

Adoption is mainly a function of how motivated a team is to employ a collaboration suite. Leaders play an important role. A leader can spearhead implementation and adoption by encouraging employees to resist the temptation of email, and use the right collaboration tool for the right purpose. Sometimes it may simply mean mild coercion. For example if someone sends a manager a document as an email attachment, they should ask the employee to upload it in the document management system. Or if they try to schedule a meeting through email, send them to the company calendar.

Sep 22 2 comments
Cloud Computing, Online Collaboration, Press Coverage, Software as a Service, Uncategorized, What's New

HyperOffice featured in SMB Group Study: Moving Beyond Email - The Era of SMB Online Collaboration Suites

SMB Group, a premier consultancy group which specializes in analyzing and researching the SMB market, recently released its study “Moving Beyond Email—The Era of SMB Online Collaboration Suites”.

The SMB Group brings deep expertise in how latest technology trends impact how SMBs operate and compete. The study follows the increasing importance of distributed collaboration in SMBs, and the consequent increase in use of collaboration technology. According to Laurie McCabe, co author of the report: -

“Until recently, most small and medium businesses (SMBs) could get along just fine with a few tools such as email, calendars, document sharing, and the good old telephone. But today, many SMBs are finding that they need more effective collaboration tools to share knowledge, streamline processes, and keep everyone in the organization “on the same page”. They need to make information easier to find, share, and use as well as to connect with the right people at the right time—on any device”

As Laurie points out, email is no longer the collaboration tool of choice, and workers have moved their many of their collaboration activities to other tools. But it is not an either or situation, as email continues to be important, as most of us can testify. Keeping in mind this close relationship in mind, we had started offering integrated email and collaboration tools. In the past couple of years Google and Microsoft have also entered the arena with Google Apps and Microsoft BPOS, making the “communication and collaboration” space well defined.

An SMB Group survey found that a quarter of SMBs intend to invest in collaboration software in the coming 12 months. And the online, or “software as a service” model for collaboration solutions is ideal for SMBs because it has been designed for their specific needs and budgets.

Recently, have been numerous reports on the SaaS market by Forrester, Gartner, McKinsey, IDG and AMI on the SaaS market in general, but none deals with the online collaboration market in such detail.

The study brings more than abstract, high level information of the kind that SMBs find particularly hard to digest. The report brings a detailed assessment of the top 8 players in the online collaboration suite category. We are more than pleased that HyperOffice has been featured in a lineup that includes names like Google, Microsoft and IBM.

The intuitive “SMB Readiness Grid” compares the eight vendors in terms of their marketing strategies, solution capabilities, service offerings, and differentiation for the SMB market.

In addition, the report also brings interviews of SMB customers who have used these suites.

The purpose of the grid is not just a feature assessment of the suites, but their fit for the SMB market. We believe HyperOffice will stand out in this respect because Microsoft BPOS and Google Apps are more focused towards the more profitable enterprise segment, while our bread and butter comes from SMBs, around whom we have developed our solutions.

Journalists interested the SMB market will find bountiful insights in this research, and of course, SMBs will find it immensely useful is devising their collaboration strategy. You can download the research abstract here, and find further details on how to purchase the report.

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Sep 08 0 comments
Collaboration Software, Online Collaboration, Press Coverage, Software as a Service

HyperOffice Collaboration Software Suite Featured on Two High Authority Roundups

After getting a flattering review from PC Mag, HyperOffice was covered again last week by PC Mag in “Ten Apps That Can Make You More Productive”.

Sean Carroll, the author of the article, felt that collaborating online HyperOffice can help workers “work smart instead of longer”. Although “having enough time left over to play Fantasy Football”, isn’t exactly the reason you would want to be more productive, as Sean cheekily puts it, greater productivity is something every business strives for.

You can click on the image below to see the slide show with all the suggested products, including the HyperOffice Collaboration Suite.

HyperOffice #6 in GetApp Top 20

HyperOffice also had the previlige of being listed at #6 in the “top 20 applications of September” by GetApp, a well known marketplace of cloud apps, which has been covered by top tech blogs like TechCrunch, ReadWriteWeb and InformationWeek. HyperOffice is the top app in the collaboration software arena.

The ranking is based on a composite algorithm that incorporates several criteria, including listing popularity on GetApp.com, number of reviews and comments, social media presence such as Twitter and FaceBook followers, volume and quality of integration points, and input from analyst reports. The ranking is updated monthly.



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Aug 23 0 comments
Collaboration Software, Online Collaboration, Press Coverage, What's New

HyperOffice Collaboration Suite Reviewed by PC Mag

Edward Mendelson, an eminent software reviewer for PC Mag just put out a review of HyperOffice, which we were eagerly looking forward to. We are glad to get a “Good” rating from Mendelson and PC Mag, known for their rigorous and stringent review standards.

It was also encouraging to find that some of the features and capabilities we hold as the key strengths of HyperOffice found echo in Mendelson’s review.

As you may know, we recently gave HyperOffice a major interface makeover, in tune with the latest trends and technologies. Mendelson had some good things to say about it: -

“HyperOffice is a slick online collaboration service that lets you store and access files, tasks, contacts, links, documents, and almost any digital file on a HyperOffice-hosted website.”

Our positioning as a fully hosted, inexpensive and hassle free Exchange and SharePoint alternative for small businesses also found resonance in the review: -

“Bottom Line – (HyperOffice is) A fully hosted alternative to building your own Microsoft Exchange and SharePoint servers.”

“Designed as a cloud-based, lower-priced alternative to Microsoft Office 2010 with components of SharePoint and Microsoft Exchange that’s accessible via any browser, HyperOffice is easy to set up as both an intranet and an extranet that lets co-workers, customers, and clients see specific data.”

As a small business ourselves, we understand the importance of customer service, and responsiveness to customer feedback for our SMB customers who often lack in house IT resources. This, we hold key to our offering, and was pointed out by Mendelson in his review as well.

“Overall, I was deeply impressed by HyperOffice’s depth of features, tight integration of all its elements, sleek appearance, and crack support team that was admirably responsive in both acknowledging the problems I discovered, and in many cases, fixing them almost as fast as I reported them.”

We are thankful to Mendelson for conducting a thorough and objective review, and educating the market about HyperOffice. We hope you will take his advice when he says:-

“HyperOffice should be high on your list of collaboration services to consider thanks to its combination of relatively low price and up-to-date interface.”

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Jul 17 0 comments
Cloud Computing, Collaboration Software, Online Collaboration, Press Coverage, What's New

HyperOffice Up in the Air (Waves)

Apart from reflecting the buoyant mood here at HyperOffice, the blog title also literally reflects the coverage HyperOffice has received from tech media in the past couple of weeks. Since we launched the new version of HyperOffice, we have continued to attract the interest of well known bloggers, journalists and analysts following the collaboration software market. Shahab Kaviani, our Vice President, Marketing had the fortune of being interviewed by the very best in the market over the last few weeks.

Our positioning of bringing integrated online messaging and collaboration software with a laser focus on small to medium sized businesses seems to have found resonance in this fast evolving and growing market. Google Apps and Microsoft BPOS have popularized the “integrated” approach, but their focus remains towards the juicier enterprise segment.

Rich Tehrani, CEO of TMC, interviewed Shahab for TMCNet.


Laurie McCabe of SMB Group, consulting firm focusing on the specific tech needs of small to medium sized businesses, interviewed Shahab for their “SMB Spotlight” podcast series.

Phil Wainewright, writer of the influential “software as a services” blog at ZDNet, and Managing editor at eBizQ, interviewed Shahab for eBizQ’s podcast series.

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Jun 10 0 comments
Collaboration Software, Online Collaboration, Press Coverage, Uncategorized

Make way for the all-new HyperOffice Collaboration Suite!

As you know, we announced the general availability of the all-new HyperOffice on the 20th of May. This announcement official ended a 6-month beta involving rigorous testing by thousands of our users, resulting in hundreds of bug fixes and enhancements.

The beta was steered by a “Product Development Committee” comprised of in-house experts and HyperOffice users. We made frequent trips to customer sites and conducted detailed customer interviews to get the new version just right.

As you know, the online collaboration market keeps growing like there is no stopping. New participants are entering the fray every passing day, Microsoft just launched its new collaborative range of products – SharePoint and Office 2010, even as Google and Microsoft fiercely wage the collaboration battle.

Being a pioneer in the online collaboration domain, we plan to ride this wave at its crest. The all-new HyperOffice has generated a lot of excitement in the market, and the whos-who in tech media had great things to say about the product. With our experience and depth of understanding of the market, our laser focus on small businesses, and a supercharged HyperOffice Collaboration Suite, we are hoping this will be a critical point in our company’s growth.

Here’s what the media had to say:-

Christopher Dawson from ZDnet, one of the world’s top authorities on Google Apps and online collaboration wrote in Can HyperOffice out-simplify Google Apps?

HyperOffice takes the relative simplicity of Google Apps and provides a turnkey SaaS solution”

David Roe from CMSWire wrote in his article HyperOffice to Take on Google Apps, Microsoft Web Apps?

While the release will give small companies the ability to collaborate with inexpensive and accessible tools, the release should also stir up the already turbulent and cloud app invested waters which Google and Microsoft (news, site) (with its upcoming Web Apps release) have been fighting in for months.

Matthew Weinberger of mspmentor.com wrote in his article HyperOffice Launches New Version of Cloud Collaboration Suite

I had the chance to take the new version of HyperOffice for a spin and came away intrigued – it feels almost like a desktop operating system in the browser window, and for the most part it had the responsiveness to match.

HyperOffice Nudges Google, IBM Aside with Cloud Apps for SMBs wrote Clint Boulton from eWeek in Dec when we had launched our beta.

HyperOffice launches new beta to take on Google Apps wrote Chris Kanaracus of IDG back in Dec.

It is great to see our vision resonate with the market. As Christopher Dawson said “there are many ways to skin the cat” (meaning many ways to serve the online collaboration market) and we hope to continue bringing a very distinct and compelling approach to this “skinning”.

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Mar 25 0 comments
Mobile Collaboration, Press Coverage

HyperSynch Mobile Collaboration is a Big Hit

A couple of weeks ago, we launched the beta of HyperSynch, a mobile collaboration service built into our HyperOffice online collaboration software, which allows growing business workers to use their mobile devices to access and collaborate on business information.hypersynch-blog

Mobility is here to stay

HyperSynch was developed as we could clearly see the growing importance of mobile devices in the business context. Apart from our own interactions with our users and the market, this is clearly indicated by recent market studies – A Gartner study predicts that by 2013, mobile phones will overtake PCs as the most common Web access device worldwide; According to a recent IDC report ““almost 40 percent of organizations plan to deploy a SaaS-based mobile solution in the next 12–18 months.”

This has been fuelled by changes converging from all directions - advancements in mobile technology; the emergence of powerful and compelling mobile devices such as the iPhone, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, Nokia etc, and greater bandwidth of net access on mobile devices. But most importantly, it has been fuelled by end business users increasingly wanting to use their mobile devices as a tool to access and collaborate business information.

Market offerings and their shortcomings

Recent times have seen the launch of business mobile apps by large companies attempting to fill this space. Apple launched MobileMe, which allows users to synch personal mail, contacts, calendars etc over the air between their iPhone and desktop. RIM launched BlackBerry Enterprise Server Express, a server based sister of its enterprise solution BES, which allows synchronization with MS Exchange data.

But these solutions suffer from some clear drawbacks, especially from a small business perspective: –

1) Either they work with a single device and service (MobileMe works only with iPhone and its AT&T web telephony service),
2) Are simply too expensive from a total cost standpoint (BES Express and MS Exchange both assume that MS Exchange is installed at the company servers which can cost thousands of dollars in implementation and maintenance)
3) Allow you to only manage personal information rather than share and collaborate on it with colleagues.

Why the media likes HyperSynch

HyperSynch was launched to fill this glaring gap of a solution which worked across mobile platforms (HyperSynch works with almost every major mobile device in the market including iPhone, BlackBerry, Android, Nokia, Windows Mobile and more), was hosted and did not require users to install or maintain anything, was priced reasonably with growing business in mind, and allowed users to share and collaborate with colleagues right from their mobile devices.

As we hoped and expected, HyperSynch was a big hit with the media on its launch, and we got covered and received flattering comments from well known tech journals such as MSPMentor, CMSWire, PCMag, and BusinessComputingWorld.

Here is what some of them had to say:-

“And that’s the real joy of it — companies with even the beta release of HyperSynch won’t have to decide on whether to invest in Blackberry Enterprise Server or Microsoft Exchange Server or MobileMe based on the mobile device their employees are using, as HyperSynch works with them all.” David Roe, CMSWire.com.

“RIM, get ready for a fight: HyperOffice has announced that HyperSynch, an over-the-air push-messaging solution that works as well with the iPhone, the Droid, or even Windows Mobile devices as it does the BlackBerry, has entered beta testing. What’s more, it’s going to be included, gratis, with HyperOffice deployments. Interested?” Matthew Weinberger, MSPMentor.com

“Would especially appeal to growing businesses” Kevin Tea, BusinessComputingWorld.uk

In the larger context of fast evolving mobile business technology and from a capabilities standpoint, industry experts clearly recognize the relevance of HyperSynch.

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Dec 09 2 comments
Collaboration Software, Live Seminars, Press Coverage, Product Update, What's New

Wikis Part of Free Upgrade to HyperOffice Collaboration Sofware

The Wiki Phenomena

wiki-blog-11We are all familiar with Wikipedia, and have come across it often as we search the internet. It is the largest encyclopedia ever compiled by man - more than 7 times Britannica, the largest traditional encyclopedia.

The incredible thing about Wikipedia is that its content is entirely contributed collaboratively by volunteers – lay users like you and me. The reason why volunteers participate is the incredible simplicity of the underlying “wiki software” ( “wiki” is Hawaiian for “quick”). The site is comprised of web pages anyone can make changes to, as simply as typing into Text Pad. As soon changes are saved, they are available to everyone across the globe. Talk about simple collaboration!

And it is exactly this fact that has lead to its gargantuan growth to the greatest repository in just 6 years.

Wikis and Your Business

The Wikipedia success story certainly has great lessons and applications for businesses – especially small businesses. Collaboration is the heart and soul of successful business in today’s age – to be able to work together effectively in a network of employees, teams, partners, vendors and customers. Wiki software allows companies to do this with incredible ease – as simply as getting on a collaborative group wiki web page, adding content, and saving it to be instantly available to everyone else in the group.

Of course, company wikis need to have more structure and policy controls than a public wiki like Wikipedia. Only group members have access to a group wiki, and there should be tools to track the collaboration process.

HyperOffice Wikis are here - Completely Free Upgrade!

In our constant attempt to bring you cutting edge collaboration software technology, and bring you the best solutions in the market – we have added wikis to our range of collaboration features. HyperOffice wikis bring wiki software molded perfectly for your small business context. And in HyperOffice tradition, this upgrade is available to all users without any additional cost. Here are some of the things you can do: -

- In the spirit of our theme for 2010, “no geeks required”, HyperOffice wikis are an incredibly simple way to work together. Just access your group wiki, add text, images, links to other company wiki pages, files or formatting, as simply as working with a word processor like MS Word.

- Create highly customized group wikis with branding, html code, and collaboration modules.

- Create unlimited group wikis sites for internal or external groups with as many interlinked wiki pages as you like.

- Create policy controls around group wikis. Manage access permissions, and define role based access level.

- Track collaboration by automatically recording the history of changes to your wiki pages, and who made changes.

- Choose to get notified whenever changes are made to any wiki page.

HyperOffice wiki screenshot

wiki-blog

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