All new Huddle unites content and conversation in a single central view, enabling faster,more efficient working

Source: Huddle

July 18th, 2012

Huddle today unveiled a new version of its cloud-based enterprise content collaboration platform aimed at streamlining content and conversations in a single central view. In today’s knowledge economy, immediate access to information provides enterprises with a significant competitive advantage and the new version of Huddle offers users a simplified and more intuitive interface, enabling them to instantly view and interact with their files, related discussions and metadata in one central place.

The new version of Huddle is the latest in a series of product innovations this year, including Huddle’sintelligent recommendation technology and Huddle Sync as well as redesigned native apps for iPhone and iPad, fueling a projected eightfold increase in enterprise sales this year.

“Enterprises understand the value of ‘social software’ as well as cloud-based content management systems: both can drive productivity, break down departmental silos and increase knowledge sharing,” said Martin Schneider, research manager with 451 Research. “Today we are seeing content and sharing more closely aligned in tools like Huddle. The amalgamation of content and social collaboration in the cloud better supports the modern workplace – where knowledge workers are demanding anytime, anywhere access to content, information and their colleagues.”

The new Huddle software places content at the center of all user activity, providing the following features and benefits:

• Immediate access — files are displayed instantly, which means no wasted time downloading the file to view it or to identify if it’s the file you want
• Accurate online file rendering in high definition — images, text files, Microsoft Word and PowerPoint documents, and even complicated PDFs are rendered accurately, which makes it even easier to view the content you want
• Easier in-app controls — you can search documents, edit metadata, copy text to the clipboard, zoom and print with a single click, without needing to download the file
• Built-in workflows — you can easily create and manage tasks and approvals for yourself and colleagues, enabling a complete view of a project’s progress over time
• Secure, native processing — all document processing happens within Huddle software, ensuring that enterprise data is always secure
• New @mention and ‘Share’ button — you can direct comments and notifications to specific individuals or teams by using the @ symbol in file conversations
• Full version history — Every version of every file is recorded and available for you to download if you need it, without requiring any help from IT
• Granular audit trails — all file views, file changes, comments, discussions and approvals are tracked, whether they are made online, on the desktop, via mobile apps or email. IT has granular audit trails of all activity for enterprise compliance purposes and users can control who can view and edit their files

“Organizations need knowledge, not just silos of data that take up storage space on servers,” said Alastair Mitchell, CEO, Huddle. “The new Huddle is the first enterprise tool that brings together content, conversation and enterprise-level security, giving workers a full 360-degree view of information that is important to them. Our customers have seen the time taken to find and share information reduce by half. Discussions are focused on specific content, knowledge is transmitted to the people that need it and the enterprise data store is enriched and available for everyone in the enterprise ecosystem. Legacy ICT systems no longer support the new ways of working and Huddle is leading a transformation in the ECM space, ensuring people have access to higher quality content, productivity is increased, and costs are reduced.”

“Huddle has transformed the way in which we store, share and collaborate on working documents and bid plans,” said Jonathan Barwick, Bid Manager at Keolis UK, one of Europe’s leading public transport operators. “The new central view enables the team to access and interact with their documents a lot faster and not having to download our files saves a huge amount of time. With all our content in Huddle workspaces, signing off files is much simpler and the platform has taken the hassle out of IT and location for us. When moving offices during a bid process, we didn’t have to worry about moving servers or installing complex infrastructure. The team was up and running almost immediately and Huddle was an effective alternative to our servers.”

“Prior to Huddle, we relied on email and servers to share documentation across the firewall,” said Chris Minto, Operations Director at infrastructure-security and monitoring firm OptaSense. “With paperwork for numerous global projects being sent back and forth, it was difficult to keep track of revisions, feedback and approvals. If not stopped, we knew this could cause confusion for workers on site.  Huddle provides us with a secure, central hub where everyone – including field engineers, home workers, clients and partners – can view the most up-to-date schematics for an installation, for example. With the new streamlined interface, it’s immediately obvious what file version people are working from and all the discussions that have occurred around a file. Intuitive and easy to use, Huddle has significantly improved productivity, increased transparency on projects and we no longer have to provide VPN access to workers on the move.”

The new version of Huddle software is currently available for all customers, including 80 percent of the Fortune 500 and 80 percent of central UK government departments.