Office 2.0 Conference : All Content - All Communities

This is my first post

rodmena.com@gmail.com — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 16:09:07 GMT

I like blogging. this is my first post.

Office 2.0: The 10-12 Year Journey

jason@echosign.com — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 20:26:01 GMT

I am probably not the only one out there wondering if there will be a 2009 Office 2.0 conference. Certainly, I could just ask Ismael instead of this post. If the event does not happen this year, it may be because of Intalio's explosive success. Or perhaps because last year was a little quieter, and less energy-filled, than 2007.

But upon reflection, it isn't because Office 2.0 is dead or over.

With Microsoft having recently bought "office.com" and finally preparing to launch its own, 100% web-based simplified version of its Office suite, one could argue the battle was won, much like Salesforce.com's battle for "no software" clearly is over (hence, their need to shift to a cloud paradigm, since the world pretty much agrees SaaS is fine for most enterprises and businesses).

In fact, thinking about it, I would propose it's about a 10-12 year journey. It seems to me there are two ways technology and software experience paradigm shifts. The first is to create a new category or experience that did not exist before. When done right, this can explode. Look at Facebook or Twitter's or YouTube's growth in just a few years.

Office 2.0 however is not about doing something never possible before. Even its most exciting elements, collaboration and visibility, exist in on-premise solutions in one form or another. Rather, it's about making your core business applications 10x more useful than before, with the web as the vehicle to do so.

Those paradigm shifts, from one way of doing something, to a new way (vs. a brand new segment) seem to take about 10-12 years. Take a look at digital photography for example. The switch took over 10 years to go mainsteam. In the beginning, analog film was hardly broken. But now, it's somewhere between a joke and the refuge of an extremely small number of art photographers.

Looking back at Office 2.0 circa the end of 2005, it was defined by Ismael in a very narrow fashion, as a sort of Network Computer 2.0 used to run core businesses applications entirely on the web. A nichey concept at the time. Today, that idea has become mainstream and even so obvious to not even to be a distinct concept.

Penetration, however, remains similar to where digital photography was around 2001. We are 30-40% along this journey and road. Whether there is an Office 2.0 conference this year or not (in its past form), I'd challenge us all to rethink how we can collaborate together on its next phase, from mainstream to ubiquity.

Invoicera - e-Billling made easy

ismael@monolab.com — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 13:39:47 GMT

Invoicera saves your time and helps you manage your bills in a snapshot. It is designed as a payment tracking software that helps you keep a track of your customer payments. For more help take just one Invoicera.com tour, and call yourself a pro in handling this application!.

Please visit www.invoicera.com for more information.

Office 2.0 and Subaru

jason@echosign.com — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 20:08:38 GMT

Amidst the unprecedentedly horrible news in the auto industry today (GM down 49% in January), Subaru announced its U.S. sales were up for a second month in a row, up 8% in January.

I am hearing similar stories from my peers in SaaS and Office 2.0 who are "Subaru-like". A number of them have had record Q4s and strong Januarys. At EchoSign digital signature, were were up 250% YoY in January, for example.

No business is immune to the recession, but certain Office 2.0 players will outperform due to the "Subaru-effect":

* Unique functionality that people want to buy even now (for Subaru, the hot new Forester which doubled, more than making up for the old models, which withered)

* Instantly cost-effective with no need for ROI calculators (for Subaru, maintaining affordable financing options, for Office 2.0, cheap pay-as-you-go)

* Growing a small base in a large market (Subaru isn't Toyota - it hasn't maxxed out its market share, nor have almost any Office 2.0 start-ups).

To be clear, Office 2.0 isn't immune to this dramatic downturn. But services (such as our own EchoSign digital signature solution) that provide clear ROI, minimal risk, and which play in large markets can continue to grow and thrive.

Desktop as a Service Seeks a Market

ismael@monolab.com — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 03:02:03 GMT

There's a new term in the managed services space -- Desktop-as-a-Service (DaaS), and it's an obvious extension of the SaaS model. Desktone is a company that provides DaaS capabilities to service providers. Its customers, according to CEO Harry Ruda, currently include Verizon and Softbank Telecom.

Ruda characterizes DaaS as a service whereby users obtain their computing services through a remote connection over a network. The physical compute power, if you will, is delivered through a service provider and paid for on some usage basis.

In other words, users can access operating system and applications through a completely hosted system, and the service provider would be responsible at the back-end for storing data, upgrading applications, updating virus protection, among other activities.

Computing Power of a Utility
It relies on the whole concept of utility computing, in which compute power is delivered the same way electricity is -- when you want it in a metered fashion. DaaS proponents even promise that their service, like electricity, is instant-on, because there's no booting of an operating system.

I'm skeptical about a technology that even its proponents admit doesn't work well over wireless connections, when you consider that laptops now outsell desktops because of their ability to work even when users are disconnected.

However, proponents insist that by handing management of PC resources over to a service provider, companies of almost any size can cut maintenance and technical support costs, as well as increase security because the service provider can focus more on patches and virus protection.

Another pioneer in this new category, MokaFive offers a DaaS subscription service for $100 per user per year that uses a virtual machine, which they describe as "centrally managed but locally executed."

That means end-users can choose from among any number of devices -- laptops, Macintoshes, smartphones, tablets -- and have corporate data protected, but can still use their chosen device for other applications or personal information.

Evolution is Easier than a Revolution
The arguments and variations of DaaS go on and on. One of the biggest stumbling blocks to the DaaS model may be the fact that it requires extensive re-thinking of one's infrastructure -- either by replacing desktop computers with disk-less computers or significantly upgrading the network bandwidth, or both.

In contrast to DaaS, most of the current "fill-in-the-blank" as a Service models have been tried and proven, because they're a logical evolution from existing operational models. My skepticism remains intact.

Source: Business Technology Roundtable

The Role of Office 2.0 in a Global Recession

jason@echosign.com — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 03:44:18 GMT

It is an understatement to say how rapidly things have changed in the global economy in the past 60 days. In the last post on the blog, we discussed the impact of AIG and Lehman on the enterprise buyers. Now, those seem like the good old days, with even Google now having lost confidence in its ability to execute in the short term.

But the global recession will actually truly and finally focus the role of Office 2.0 technologies. An early thesis was that the value proposition around Office 2.0 was a combination of (1) free and/or dirt cheap and (2) collaboration. Free actually is harder to give away in a down market. The reason being that any product, even free, requires an investment to understand a new business process, and a new product. When businesses of all size are struggling to make their plans, there isn't much incentive to experiment, and free isn't enough to make up for any perceived distraction from protecting the core business.

Collaboration per se, while core to the Office 2.0 thesis, loses a huge portion of its perceived value in a downturn. Much of the boom in SaaS, Office 2.0 and webservices in 2007 and 1h '08 was around improving efficiencies in scaling organizations. When organizations instead shrink, communication is probably actually even more important -- but investment in communication whose ROI is tied to faciliatating growth is essentially dead.

So where does that leave Office 2.0? In an extremely interesting place that was almost unthinkable in 2006 (where many saw it almost as a joke or a hobby for webheads). Office 2.0 in Q4 '08 and 2009 is and will be about (x) increasing and (y) protecting revenue. That is the only place money, and effort, will be spent. We're seeing this firsthand at EchoSign, where paid customers are accelerating -- not to bring order to their business processes (the 2007/1H '08 theme), but rather, to protect revenue, to close that ever-rarer beast, the ready-to-buy customer, with an electronic signature before they change their mind. I would expect our friends at Freshbooks for example are seeing a similar trend.

Forget about cost savings from Office 2.0. Instead, the Office 2.0 that leaders have revenue-centric ROI that can be measured instantly, or in days, will thrive.

Registration Instructions

ismael@monolab.com — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 19:34:24 GMT

Registration fee ($1495) includes 2 days of Office 2.0 Conference as well as access to the Unconference.

Credit card information is not retained.

There are no refunds.

Registration is transferable to another person in the case attendee cannot make it.

For questions please contact may at monolab dot com.

Monolab, Inc

543 Bryant Street

Palo Alto, CA 94301

United States

Media Announcements

sireland@jobblogs.cc — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 19:44:19 GMT

The following announcements will be made at the Office 2.0 Conference:

An established Office 2.0 company will release a new product
JobBlogs will launch its product
Postful will release new services
Presdo will release new features
Zooos will announce a ground-breaking product

Office 2.0 Launchpad

sireland@jobblogs.cc — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 17:23:06 GMT

The following companies will present at the Office 2.0 Launchpad:

	billFLO's mission is to bring the promise of paperless invoicing to small and medium businesses. 24 billion invoices are sent between companies in the US every year. Over 80% are paper invoices. Those paper invoices drive huge inefficiencies and costs every year; 40B pieces of paper, $8.2B of postage and 1.2B hours of data entry alone. billFLO eliminates paper invoices. This very elegant solution works for all companies, from the local hardware store to multi-national corporations. A quick download of billFLO is all that is required to enable companies to share all their invoices electronically.

	Diagramic is all about "connecting the dots." Create amazing diagrams for your projects. It's fast, easy, and impressive. Last year, we helped Forbes visualize the Forbes 400 list. This year we are making this technology available for everybody.

	Enleiten was founded with the vision of helping you manage your responsibilities simply and effectively. We build easy-to-use tool that can track your open projects, keep track of the way different users respond to requests, and streamline your daily work. We know software can't replace the value of human communication and effort, but we believe it can help shed some light on the tangle of priorities and tasks people face. We love what we've built - and we use it ourselves to manage our small business, plan events, and even remembering to pick up some groceries on the way home. We're a small, GTD-based company, so we wanted project management that lets you track your next actions, builds in your waiting lists, and lets you use tags as contexts in the way that fits your workflow best. Better yet, you can maintain a single trusted system that keeps your personal to-do lists private, but allows sharing of collaborative projects.

	Itensil provides an innovative PaaS (Platform-as-a-Service) to automate “roughly repetitive” work in a collaborative user environment. Itensil's technological achievement is the seamless ability to balance openness and sharing with compliance and security, in an intuitive, user-friendly environment that belies the advanced capabilities of the platform. We work with Solution Partners to package and deliver expertise in a process context, for research administration, sales management, outsourcing, change management, emergency response and similar fast-moving, team-based activities.

	JobBlogs is most readily described as CRM meets Project Management. It serves up a nice, intuitive and quick workspace tailored to work out universal team challenges — contacts, plans, activities, tasks, schedules, organize them in no time and track them during the work flow. The name is a mashup of Job and Blogs - not blogs in the traditional sense but in the sense of being enablers of two way communication and idea collaboration. It’s a good solution for anyone handling large number of customer interactions - service based industries being the most obvious - anyone that requires daily coordination of a dynamic set of different data streams.

	Less Everything's goal is to make "software that gets out of your way." Less Accounting, More Honey, and Less Projects are the start of the productivity and communications suite of products designed to take away the pain of accounting, time tracking and project management for small businesses and freelancers. They have a few more products yet to launch that will complete their vision of the "because nobody reads the documentation" productivity/office tools.

	MindMeister brings the concept of mind mapping to the web, using its facilities for real-time collaboration to allow truly global brainstorming sessions. Users can create, manage and share mind maps online and access them anytime, from anywhere. In brainstorming mode, fellow MindMeisters from around the world (or just in different rooms) can simultaneously work on the same mind map - and see each other's changes as they happen. Using integrated Skype calls, they can throw around new ideas and put them down on 'paper' at the same time.

	Mousecloud provides real-time client/team feedback to the stuff you create. Imagine having a virtual overhead projector where everyone can participate remotely. It's the easiest way to share and collaborate online. Period. We're a privately held company located in both Berkeley, California and Austin, Texas.

	MyBooo is cloud computing for dummies. Our goal is to merge local and online applications through an easy to use Web platform. We provide a web desktop including all the tools you need to work: mail, agenda, contact, sharing, RSS, word, excel and so on. This desktop is synced with your main PC and reachable through any mobile. Modifications made either online or from your mobile appear automatically on your local desktop and vice-versa. So MyBooo is a packaged solution providing to independent and SMBs extranet, back up and virtualization for a monthly subscription.

	OBM is an open source alternative to Microsoft Exchange® or Lotus Notes®.

	Oprius is a SaaS sales tool designed for individual professional sales people. We provide a simple to use tool without all the fat of traditional systems. Our product was the result of a year of research with Sales people in the trenches evaluating their current systems and building to their specifications. Imagine a product designed by sales people for sales people. Oprius provides tools for lead capture, automated sales and marketing calendars, and a integrated email client that automatically attaches your outgoing and incoming emails to your contacts history. There is also a stay-in-touch reminder.

	Plutext enables real time collaborative editing of Word documents in Word, helping teams meet their deadlines. All the software is open source. This includes a Word add-in, a Java library for manipulating docx files, and a cross platform editor.

	With Postful it is as easy to send individual letters or postcards as it is to send to entire mailing lists. Mail can be sent using email, web forms, or API requests. Send reminder cards, invoices, vacation postcards (straight from your phone) or newsletters. Send a client a thank you card before you've even left their building or automate birthday offers and service reminders. Send one letter, thousands, or anything in between with a single email or request. But Postful's real strength is the ease of integration with other applications. If your application can send email, you can have it sending physical mail in minutes. If you want more control, our API gives you access to every feature of the application. We provide integration assistance for sites which wish to use email or our API and provide custom development for sites which wish to build mail portals but need more development help. Founded in 2006, Postful is launching out of beta at the Office 2.0 conference.

	Presdo takes the hassle out of trying to find the best time to get together with people. Use Presdo to minimize the annoying ping pong of email, texting, and voicemail when organizing the next team lunch or trying to grab coffee with a friend.

	TeamWork Live is an intuitive, secure, web-based project management and project collaboration tool. It helps you run your projects more efficiently, promotes collaboration and accountability among team members, and makes your clients happier through increased transparency.

	Wrike Corporation is headquartered in Silicon Valley, California. Wrike is the leading provider of on-demand project management software for small and midsize companies. Wrike is operated by a strong team of dedicated professionals who deliver passionate support, application engineering and design, marketing and sales. Our stakeholders, employees and global partners share the commitment of helping companies worldwide to become more competitive by improving their project management practices with Wrike. We built Wrike with the understanding of how project management is executed in small and midsize businesses. Our Mission is to deliver the best online service that will let you manage your business easily via email and the Web anytime, anywhere.

	ZoooS develops and distributes thin client software that runs on any standard web browser, regardless of the operating system. The focus is in a business to business model with one of the products’ greatest assets being the ease with which in can be integrated into other web sites. ZoooS is headquartered in Nevada and has a subsidiary in Germany. We will show a preview of ZoooS Office which is an ajax port of OpenOffice.org 3.0.

Launchpad Participants

sireland@jobblogs.cc — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 00:01:19 GMT

The following startups will launch new products at the Office 2.0 Conference:

billFLO	MindMeister	Postful
Diagramic	Mousecloud	Presdo
Enleiten	MyBooo	TeamWork Live
Itensil	OBM	Wrike
JobBlogs	Plutext	Zooos

JobBlogs

sireland@jobblogs.cc — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 21:39:45 GMT

About JobBLogs: JobBlogs is most readily described as CRM meets Project Management. It serves up a nice, intuitive and quick workspace tailored to work out universal team challenges — contacts, plans, activities, tasks, schedules, organize them in no time and track them during the work flow. The name is a mashup of Job and Blogs - not blogs in the traditional sense but in the sense of being enablers of two way communication and idea collaboration. It’s a good solution for anyone handling large number of customer interactions - service based industries being the most obvious - anyone that requires daily coordination of a dynamic set of different data streams. Please visit http://jobblogs.cc for more information.

Contact: joblogs@office20.com

Scheduling: Schedule Meeting