This week at the Office 2.0 event in San Francisco, ContactOffice, an 8-year-old provider of a virtual office software, launched a new version of their web office suite. Built using AJAX and the Google Web Toolkit, the latest iteration of their virtual office and groupware application includes tools for messaging, contact management, calendars, documents, bookmarks, faxes, SMS, notes, forums, and integrates with Skype for intra-team communication.
ContactOffice initially launched their suite of online groupware tools in 1999 and has been profitable since 2003, according to the company. They have 350,000 registered users, 70% of whom are using a paid version of the software. They feel that the new version of their application provides greater speed and usability. Having only used their latest version, that's hard for me to judge, but it did nonetheless feel very fast and intuitive.
"This new version provides our customers with a faster, more robust user experience. ContactOffice has been around for some time, and the past few years we have been more focused on adding features to the product and building a diverse customer base," said Patrick De Schutter, Founder & Managing Director of ContactOffice in a press release. "A new technological platform and design was a logical new step to take, and I'm incredibly pleased with the result."
ContactOffice is not a full fledged Microsoft Office replacement, like Zoho, though De Schutter did hint at that possibility in the future saying that the new framework would allow the company to begin adding new apps and features in order "to become a full-fledged online office suite where businesses are able to operate 100% online." Rather, ContactOffice in its current form is more of a groupware tool that lets businesses organize, communicate, and collaborate in an online space.
The application looks and feels like many desktop counterparts, with a multi-paned user interface that appears modeled after offline email and contact management programs. A top navigation provides important application buttons (such as to create a new document) and changes contextually with each application, while a left side pane offers access to any of the suite's applications and folder navigation trees.
ContactOffice's applications fall into two main categories:
Some of ContactOffice's apps feel a bit clumsy and awkwardly suited for sharing and collaboration with other members of your group. The Bookmarking application, for example, seems ill conceived when compared to leading social bookmarking apps like del.icio.us, and forces you to jump through hoops to control sharing options. ContactOffice might be better suited to try emulating the market leaders (but on more focused scale), rather than trying to force a bookmarking app into their set convention.
On the other hand, much of ContactOffice is very impressive. Their email suite, though perhaps not quite as polished, is as easy to use and as attractive visually as Yahoo!'s new Mail application, for example. And their calendar app is one of the nicest I have seen.
In all, ContactOffice is an interesting groupware play, that (mostly) neatly wraps up a number of communication and collaboration applications for use by groups. It will be interesting to see where they take their new platform and if their plans truly include a full fledged Microsoft Office replacement that can compete with Zoho, ThinkFree, gOffice, Google Apps, and others. The application suite has a full featured free version, and users can link their individual accounts and create groups without paying an additional fee.
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This week at the Office 2.0 event in San Francisco, ContactOffice, an 8-year-old provider of a virtual office software, launched a new version of their web office suite. Read More
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Nice, but how does it fare against google's office programs?
Posted by: www.TeesMyBody.com T-Shirts | September 6, 2007 11:01 AMI agree this product is looking pretty cool, the main thing they've really got going from them is what you picked up on here Josh and I also got from speaking with Patrick, they're profitable and have thousands of paid users.
Its interesting to see that at this Office 2.0 some of the apps that have cropped up in the last couple of years that haven't made it here because they haven't been able to build any substantial cashflow and so have been dumped by their VC's.
Business like contact office have been in the game a few years, have private labeled the product and stuck it in behind the firewall for some large contracts which has at the very least enabled them to bank sales and stay afloat, which is a key part of the game of buisness.
Posted by: Tim Norton | September 6, 2007 4:12 PMFastCommerce.com is WEB 2.0 Ecommerce Software
Web 2.0 is simply software delivered over the web, via an Internet connection. But the big deal in Web 2.0 ecommerce solutions is that web-based ecommerce software now rivals in-house solutions in features and functions, and also in speed. A web-based application is great if it only does one thing like email, less great if it runs the whole of your business, right? Guess again.
Among the number of trends driving innovation in ecommerce software is the development of WEB 2.0 technologies that not only deliver low-cost ecommerce applications, but deliver speed and performance as well. Speed for the online store customer as they roam an ecommerce site, and speed for all the ecommerce utilities that drive the business end of the ecommerce software.
The ultimate goal of WEB 2.0 ecommerce software is to replace in-house and legacy systems with ecommerce web applications that offer the same features and functions, but at lower costs. Web applications can also be updated on an ongoing basis so that the Web 2.0 ecommerce application incorporates the best possible ecommerce web applications available at any time.
Google, and now Microsoft, are now offering many applications as web 2.0 applications. The FastCommerce.com ecommerce solution delivers ecommerce applications on this same model. We've developed an ecommerce software that enables small to medium sized business to have access to a single-system that can run the whole of their online store and online business are one application, delivered over the web, delivered at and no or low cost. FastCommerce.com's Web 2.0 ecommerce includes a website, online product catalog with related products, order capture and order processing, a shopping cart, contact and customer management, as well as shipping, inventory and more.
All the tools are there in a high performance and inexpensive ecommerce solution that will let small business grow their online stores while not having to worry about costly investments, or having an in-house IT department. With the FastCommerce.com Web 2.0 software, Internet retailers can focus on running an ecommerce business, on customer service, not on hardware and software support.
FastCommerce.com will being rapidly developing products and features to its main ecommerce software: the goal is not simply to be an ecommerce shopping cart provider, but a platform that gathers together all the features and functions (for example, ERP) that a small business need to run the whole of their business. FastCommerce.com is a small business ecommerce utility that is pure Internet Web 2.0 in easy of use, speed and performance, and at low or no cost for businesses large and small.
Posted by: GREG | September 6, 2007 11:12 PM