SMB startup OpenACircle.com introduces an online collaboration product.SAN FRANCISCO—Collaboration
specialists are never in short supply at Web 2.0 Expo, but this year's show
featured a company with a unique approach.
ESPRE Solutions' spinoff OpenACircle.com will offer a Java-based
collaboration application geared for the mobile professional at a time when
knowledge workers are increasingly on the go but need to stay connected through
meetings over the course of the day.
The software, now in private beta, offers, among other things, audio and
videoconferencing, online presentations, and document sharing, for free.
OpenACircle.com Chief Strategy Office Andy Wilson provided eWEEK with a demo
of what he called this "free-conomic" app here April 23, describing
the app as a mashup of the social networking aspects of Facebook, the business
collaboration tools of solutions like WebEx and GoToMeeting, and the real-time
collaboration features of products such as Skype.
When users download the OpenACircle application they are asked to join or
create a "circle," or a virtual team space, in a very clean but
colorful dashboard. New users initially invite one person, but after clicking
the "more" button they may invite up to 10 people, so clearly the
product is intended for small and midsize businesses.
OpenACircle aims to be an easier collaboration application than IBM
Lotus Sametime or Microsoft SharePoint, allowing users with some experience
with Web 2.0 apps, such as blogs, wikis or even Google Gadgets, to set up quick
meetings on the fly.
During the demo, Wilson showed
how OpenACircle lets a user invite other users with a widget that pulls e-mail
contacts from Microsoft Outlook and Google's Gmail. Users can then e-mail files
to each other.
Users can also browse through files, photos or documents on their computers
and upload them, rendering articles and other content in the center of the
dashboard and letting others in the circle comment. However, users can only
upload one file at a time. Wilson
said users will be able to use the control key to upload a variety of files
from a list when the public beta is ready.
Wilson also demonstrated
synchronous sharing, which is a key capability for online collaboration
products. With a single click of the Go Live button, users can share files and
other content with the other team members in the circle.
Users can also view each other using Webcams with a click in the app, as
well as persistently chat with anyone in the conference through a Text Chat
tab. VOIP (voice over IP) calling is also supported.
OpenACircle is currently available for Windows, but the company plans to make
the technology available on Macs by summer 2008.
Collaborative Strategies analyst David Coleman reviewed the product and gave
it the thumbs-up in a research note.
"OAC is a good collaboration application in that it gets out of the way
of the work people are trying to do, yet supports the interactions necessary in
an intuitive way," Coleman wrote.
He listed public relations personnel, doctors, lawyers
and software developers among those who might find value in
OpenACircle.
