Server-Free Document Collaboration in 2010

By Chelsi Nakano | Published Jan 7, 2010

"I believe Content Circles has significant market and technology advantages that dramatically set it apart from competitors,” said Derek Blazensky after joining the company's board of directors last month.

The expansion of their team is only one way in which Content Circles (news, site) plans to keep their server-free collaboration appeal in 2010. We checked in with Malcolm Hobbs of the marketing team and this is what he had to say:

"Our 2009 plan was all about validating the market, deepening our technology stack to expand our addressable market and expanding our base of partners."

This kind of growth has most recently included becoming fairly wallet-friendly, as Content Circles made their Personal Use license completely free halfway into last year. As for expanding their base of partners, Content Circles has been working diligently on adding support for Enterprise Content Management Systems such as Microsoft SharePoint, Xerox DocuShare and Alfresco.

In with the New

Citing a large (yet primarily SharePoint-dominated) market for document collaboration, Hobbs says the company will focus on several areas in hopes that it will lead them to greener pastures:

Raising capital for scaling up the business
Building distribution channels - Managed Service Providers (MSPs) and Value Added Resellers (VARs)
Continue product innovation with particular focus on smart phones

"Content Circles intends to utilize its unique technology advantages in 2010 to adopt key elements of the SharePoint channel strategy," he continued. "The Store-and-Forward Service acts as a shared work group resource to enable 24x7 content accessibility and automatic backup. Currently this is a do-it-yourself proposition but going forward, MSPs and VARs will be able to offer this service as a part of their product line."

Additionally, Hobbs claims the benefits of the Content Circles "hybrid cloud/p2p model" will become more clearly defined this year. Presently their shtick is using the cloud for user authentication and metadata only, and p2p for moving files from one computer to another. The minimal use of storage and bandwidth eliminates space limitations for customers as opposed to pure-cloud vendors which handle data transmission via centralized servers and networks with preset size allowances.

Going Mobile

The majority of Content Circles's customers have been itching for mobile access, so this year the team behind the platform plans to deliver it.

"We plan to address this as part of enabling store-and-forward service through our partners," explained Hobbs. "Basically, Content Circles users will be able to access their content on demand through smart phones as well as any web browser when they subscribe to the store-and-forward service."

Indeed, users have much to look forward to.