A few days ago, HyperOffice announced the private beta release of a mega upgrade to its award winning HyperOffice online collaboration software. Although HyperOffice periodically releases upgrades to its suite (it has added wikis, full document search, online database tools in the last 4 months) the latest upgrade rebuilds the suite ground up in AJAX, incorporating two years of R and D with users. 

The launch has received a lot of traction from the tech media, and the upgraded HyperOffice is being seen as a major competitor to Google Apps and solutions from IBM. The new version promises the following:-

The suite:

1. Gives newly-minted entrepreneurs the software tools and support services they need to quickly launch new ventures from any web-connected computer or mobile device, including the Apple iPhone;
2. Gives smaller and mid-sized companies the power to compete and expand -- without the hassles of buying, installing, upgrading and fixing hardware and software;
3. Speeds up time to market for agile business units – even if corporate IT resources are limited or non-existent;
4. Cuts across boundaries of time, place and organization to connect mobile workers and distributed teams with colleagues, business partners and contractors – from work, from home, while traveling, anytime, using any Internet connection. 

The suite is amongst the only solutions to bring collaboration and productivity tools integrated in a single solution - email, calendars, intranet and extranet workspaces, document management, forums, project management, workflows, database tools and online meetings. As emphasized by Shahab Kaviani, VP Marketing of HyperOffice, there are various other web 2.0 tools which bring a single piece of the puzzle - calendars, or task management, or document management etc, resulting in productivity as data is kept in the silos of different solutions. HyperOffice, in bringing all tools within the same solution, results in synergies from data flowing between different tools. 

Check out a video of the new version:-

HyperOffice, a well known provider of online document management and collaboration software solutions to small and medium sized businesses, recently added two new enhancements to their solution. First, they have added full document search capabilities to their online document management system. Earlier, people could search only the meta information (name, author, tags) of a document stored in the system. But now, as long as they remember any part or phrase in a document, they can use deep search to retrieve the document. This was a much asked for feature by HyperOffice users. 

This new feature gives HyperOffice the distinction of being the only suite in its arena to offer full document search capabilities for no additional charges, and as part of their basic offering. Competitors like WebOffice and CentralDesktop offer this feature only as part of their more expensive "enterprise" offerings.

In addition, they have added a new version of their intranet and extranet site publisher. And boy was i blown away!! It is a simple drag and drop ajax based publisher tool, and all you need to do is drop and drop elements (text boxes, collaboration modules, images, HTML code, other code etc etc etc) wherever you like on a page and press publish. Having done considerable research on online web page designers and publishers, i found this tool to be the easiest and most flexible tool I have seen, outdoing even full fledged website designers. Check out its screenshot below:-

It will take you minutes to publish and customize a workspace that looks like the following:-

I came across an interesting article on CMS Watch titled "Be wary of self claimed SharePoint killers". According to the author, Shawn Shell, many of the so called "SharePoint killers" bring only a small part of its functionality, and are not worthy of the title. As an example, Shawn has discussed HyperOffice, who he says have not labelled themselves as a "Sharepoint killer" but a "Sharepoint alternative". Even as a SharePoint alternative, according to him, a solution like HyperOffice does not size up, even for its target market - small businesses. The reason for this is that HyperOffice brings a "functional" emphasis - it beings a combination of functionalities - document management, email, project management, forums, workspaces, calendars, contacts etc. - but isnt really a malleable platform like SharePoint, on which solutions can be custom built for every situation. 

As expected, HyperOffice responded to the allegations (check the comments section). They pesented what I felt were very sound arguments. According to them, they had specifically positioned themselves as a "SharePoint alternative for SMBs" and the differance of opinion with the author is grounded in how each sees as the core needs of a growing business. Small businesses according to them "do not need intricately customized applications, multiple levels of policy controls, the ability to integrate with a complex technological environment or an application development platform. SMBs want a way to quickly organize and manage information, streamline day to day working, facilitate sharing and collaboration on information amongst distributed teams (often involving external parties such as customers, vendors, partners), and have instant access to information when necessary." They further justified this claim with the following arguments:-   

1) Customers specifically looking for SharePoint often convert and opt for HyperOffice as they decided SharePoint is too costly and complex for their context.

2) Companies currently using SharePoint often decide to shift to HyperOffice.  

3) Other "function" oriented web based solutions like Google Apps have experienced massive popularity (2 million companies use Google Apps) and are seen by experts as a "Sharepoint alternative".  

What do you think? 

Everyone's waiting with bated breath for the release of Office Web Applications, Microsoft's soon to be released web versions of its massively popular MS Office productivity software, and Microsoft's answer to online suites like Google Docs. Much of what Office Web Applications will be like is shrouded in mystery, with speculations running rampant. There was a false alarm of MS supposedly offering a technical preview of this new application at its recent annual Partner Conference, but it was found that the technical preview applied online to Office 2010, the latest version of Microsoft's on premise Office suite.

It is expected that Office Web Apps will be a stripped down version of MS Office, yet a lot more powerful than Google Apps, and hence more enticing to people used to MS Office. Microsoft has said that the applications will be made available in three ways: free through Windows Live, free to Volume Licensing customers with Software Assurance to run as a service inside their firewalls, and for a fee via Microsoft Online Services in the same hosted manner that Exchange and SharePoint are delivered.

Office Web Applications will be delivered as part of the software in the second half of 2010. Microsoft isn't planning a private beta test of Office Web Applications until August. 

Why doesn’t this come as a surprise? According to a recent study conducted by AIIM and Information Architected, SharePoint is mainly used as a system to store and share file online. So much for its powerful capabilities. What good are they if not used?

One of the main problems of SharePoint has always been its complexity. In spite of its much lauded potential, its sophistication is a major deterrent for greater end user adoption, and people end up using its very basic features which are easily accessible. It is like using a Rolls Royce as a music system. The lesson to be learnt here is, as long as a tool does not embrace its greatest supporters, the end users, it is destined to lose favor. This is an argument in favor of SaaS based online collaboration solution providers, whose hallmark has always been just-about-anybody-can-do-it solutions. These solutions bring robust yet "push button" functionality.