WatchDox, a provider of document control, tracking and protection solutions, today announced the availability of its on-premise offering. Delivering the same rich feature set and ease-of-use as its proven software-as-a-service (SaaS) solution, WatchDox’s virtual appliance addresses the needs of organizations that are required to meet specialized, strict security and privacy requirements. With private cloud and virtual appliance options, WatchDox secure document sharing and virtual data room solutions fill a previously unmet need in the government, public sector and financial industries.

WatchDox now includes the following offerings:

There has been a lot of buzz about Apple's latest brainchild, the iCloud. The purpose of the iCloud is to bring your information together across all Apple devices. Download a song on your iPod and it is automatically synched with your Mac, iPad, iPhone, and whatever other Apple devices you might own.

One of the more intriguing features of iCloud is the ability to sync your documents across all devices as well. While the majority of the features seem to cater to the individual user, this one could easily be taken into the enterprise. But does Apple have enterprise ambitions? With their power plays across multiple industries, I don't doubt that Apple could invade this space if they wanted to. If the answer is yes, then there are a few things they will need to address. After all, Steve Jobs makes some awesome products, but nobody is perfect.

My full assessment of the iCloud can be found on my company site, but you can read the summary of the article below.

Google has announced a series of updates to Google Docs which are sure to please everyone who relies on the free cloud-based service. The documents editor received additions such as a margin ruler, tab stops, comments, a re-worked system for placing and maintaining bullets and numbers and support for real-time collaboration of up to 50 people. Spreadsheets now allows for cells to be edited from the forumla bar, the use of auto-fill and the dragging and dropping of columns. Overall, everything is said to be much faster, smoother and intuitive. There’s a whole bunch of other changes we haven’t gone over, so why not hit up the jump to watch a quick little into video and then explore the service for yourself? We’re loving the realtime collaboration improvements.

 

 

ebrary(R), a leading provider of digital content products and technologies, today announced the availability of the first e-book collection for government agencies, institutes, and centers that also allows authorized administrators to quickly and easily upload, integrate, and distribute reports, presentations, and other electronic documents right from their computers.

With more than 47,000 e-books and other titles from over 425 leading publishers including AMACOM, McGraw-Hill, MIT Press, Oxford University Press, Taylor & Francis, and Wiley, ebrary's Government Complete subscription database spans a vast range of topics relating to government functions including Business & Economics, Computers & IT, Education, Engineering & Technology, Environmental Studies, Health Care & Medicine, Life & Physical Sciences, Military Science, Political Science, Social Sciences, and more. The collection may be previewed at http://site.ebrary.com/lib/govcomplete.

New SaaS solution provides an innovative response to the need for automated sales order processing

Esker, the leader in document process automation solutions, today announced the release of a new SaaS (software as a service) solution to automate sales order processing. This new solution from Esker offers companies a real alternative to traditional software for cost reduction and productivity improvement — via a simple Internet connection.

Google Friday reportedly shelled out somewhere between $25 million and $30 million for DocVerse, the almost three-year-old start-up that was obviously born to go to Google. TechCrunch expected the deal to close in December.

DocVerse will let Google Apps users share, edit, collaborate on and save offline-created Microsoft Word, PowerPoint and Excel documents in the cloud. It syncs the online and offline documents so all modifications are in parallel and allows users to make running comments.

Google Apps needs such widgetry, although users sometimes complain of it being dicey, if it hopes to strike a more even balance between its two million business users and Microsoft's 500 million-600 million Office users.

 

Hyland Software has purchased privately held eWebHealth, a leading provider of hosted medical records workflow solutions. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

“We’ve significantly reinforced our already strong healthcare presence over the past several months,” said A.J. Hyland, president and CEO of Hyland Software. “Acquisitions are accelerating our entry into key markets. They’ve also allowed us to add more people with specific healthcare expertise. Combined with our new products and important certifications, acquisitions have helped us to take our offerings and knowledge to new levels.”

Auckland Regional Council (ARC) has eliminated costly outsourcing of document production by implementing a SaaS solution that handles collaboration and change management.

Council CIO John Holley says that the adoption of Objective Corporation's community and collaboration applications was fast, with only two weeks from purchase to go-live, largely because there were no infrastructure costs or special skills required.

“We were spending a lot with publication houses -- from $10,000 to $50,000 at a time -- so the system paid for itself in under a year,” Holley says.

The applications, uCreate and uEngage provide a platform for producing and disseminating information to constituents.

Cloud Computing - What Is It?

At OfficeDrop (a cloud based digital filing system and scanner software company), we realize that a lot of small business owners have heard of cloud computing but don't realize how it can help your business. For people that don’t know, cloud computing is a great way for small businesses to utilize IT resources without costs and responsibilities of physical infrastructure. Since we 've built our business in the cloud, and since our business is helping your business, we want you to understand what, exactly, this means.

Cloud Computing as a Metaphor

To explain the metaphor, the cloud is the internet – no big secret and computing is…computing. Essentially, cloud computing is a platform for accessing and utilizing your businesses IT via the internet. This means nearly all of your IT resources – your servers, data storage, software/ programs – are hosted on the internet. NOT sitting in your office. It used to be that all of your computing would have to be done by your own servers, hardwired to your business. Now that the internet is around, your servers don’t have to be hardwired, and you don’t even need to have your own. Instead, you can rent server space from anywhere in the country from people like Amazon, who have already paid the overhead. Utilizing this system with SaaS, which does the same thing with software, one could theoretically run an entire business from various cyber cafés (if those still exist) without purchasing any of their own personal hardware or software at all.

Why the Cloud is Great for Small Businesses

Cloud computing helps small businesses in a number of ways. In general, cloud computing offers a more versatile model both technically and economically. With cloud computing, you don’t have your own servers/hardware. On the economic end of things, operating in the cloud lets you pay as you go, and you only pay for what you use. So on one hand you have lower startup costs because you don't have to purchase expensive equipment when you are getting started. On the other hand, cloud computing allows for great scalability, since you don't have to keep buying servers every time you add an employee or a new software system. It’s the scalability of cloud computing that makes it especially effective with quickly growing small businesses. In addition, cloud computing removes the need for an IT expert on payroll. Unless your company is actually developing software, you don’t need the techies that would normally be running around putting out sever fires. Now, most small businesses are probably not going out and directly purchasing cloud computing units from Amazon. But where a small business can take advantage of cloud computing is in purchasing basic software like CRM, help desk, document management, email and more. Instead of purchasing hardware, buying software on a disk and hiring an IT professional to setup the hardware install that software a small business can purchase software over the internet - typically with no installation required - from a Software-as-a-Service provider. Usually this means that you've got a monthly contract instead of a big up front purchase. And, as we've already mentioned, you don't need to buy a server to host the software!

File sharing and synchronization service provider Dropbox this morning announced that it has passed the 4,000,000 user milestone. The startup, recently crowned the Best Internet Application at the Crunchies 2009 awards ceremony, has also announced that it has hired a VP from Salesforce.com to lead its marketing and sales efforts going forward.

Dropbox was founded by CEO Drew Houston and CTO Arash Ferdowsi in 2007, and received seed funding from Y Combinator soon after. The company went on to raise $7.2 million from Sequoia Capital and Accel Partners.