DEMOfall: Enterprise Computing Gets WebDotOh-ed
Austrian company. Enterprise collaboration and search. Social software with semantic web component.
Initial Reaction: Honestly, the demo lost me. I hear lots of phrases that suggest this could be useful, but I don't think the demo helped me understand it. Would have to check it out more to know what to think.
AJAX SaaS office suite. First showed the product at DEMO 2000 -- obviously way ahead of the curve there. TJ Kang, CEO opened by saying Microsoft has listed ThinkFree as a competitive threat in its latest 10-k filing. Fully compatible with Microsoft Office. Loved it when he called Office a "legacy app" (ok, you have to be a geek to enjoy that terminology, but hey I am).
Initial Reaction: I'm still not wild about office suite tools in the SaaS model. Maybe I just travel too much so I'm allergic to the concept of being required to have an internet connection to edit a simple document. But it does seem to be an elegant product with real collaboration possibilities.
Genius Interactive is an "IT-free" chat used as a sales tool. Robust tools for converting web visitors to prospects and eventually customers. Looks like it is well suited to consultative or other more involved sales (as opposed to products suited to an impulse buy). Part of SalesGenius. CEO David Thompson was a founder of WebEx.
Initial Reaction: Sharp looks web-based sales tool. Too many features to fully understand in the DEMO format, but definitely worth a deeper look. Some of my portfolio companies could potentially use this.
Enterprise document management/collaboration tool. Free for basic use. AJAX dashboard. Allows subscriptions to documents to allow you to know when a file changes. Notification by RSS or email. Relevancy and popularity screens for searches. Can also subscribe to certain authors. Koral is designed to begin to learn user preferences (mostly by user input as opposed to watching user actions, it seems). Feedback system to help authors understand which docs are most helpful to the team.
Initial Reaction: I haven't spent enough time with really large organizations that would be the target for a product such as this. A small company wouldn't seem to get that much value out of this that I can see. Would need lots of documents, authors, and readers to truly shine. Certainly seems neat and clean and slick and all that, but I just don't know enough to offer a serious opinion.
A hardware play -- a "Wiki Smart Appliance." SaaS on your own network with high security. Automatic off-site backups. Self-manages. Software is used on wiki.com. High-energy presentation.
Initial Reaction: Could have promise. Hardware plays are generally harder for me to judge.
Axon is the product. Document collaboration, content management, and wikis all rolled into one. Federal government funding. SBIR/NSF/DoD.
Initial Reaction: This demo just didn't grab me. Will check out their booth or their web site to make an assessment.
Analyzes social media (blogs/wikis/forums). Shows who the most influential bloggers are on a given topic. Maps blog conversations. Tracks outreach to bloggers as well. Pledging to be disruptive on pricing.
[Disclosure: I'm an investor in NetVocates, a company that does human analysis of blogs.]
Initial Reaction: Looks like a powerful set of tools. Obviously I think this is a good market to be in. This seems like a good tool for agencies
Tags: DEMOfall, DEMO, System One, ThinkFree, SalesGenius, Genius.com, Koral, MindTouch, Serebrum, Axon, BuzzLogic.
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