One of the most enjoyable parts of working for a software company is when you actually get to use and enjoy using the products that you develop and sell. This is the way it is with Novell’s Filr and iPrint solutions and I truly believe our customers see the difference when we show it. Therefore, for me, using our own software is like drinking our own champagne.
Novell Filr is an enterprise file sharing and mobility technology built for organizations who want to provide a secure channel for employees to easily access and share documents and files, on any device, at anytime and anywhere, but do it according to corporate policies.
What this means to me is that even though my iPad has DropBox and GoogleDrive for personal information, Novell Filr is right next to it allowing me to access and share my work information.
Since we have deployed Novell Filr inside our own organization alongside our existing infrastructure, in addition to being the perfect test bed, we now have corporate file sharing for our worldwide sales force that totally supports a BYOD strategy, according to company policy and without all of the risks.
For a sales person Novell Filr is perfect, it allows them to put the files they want to share with or show to customers in folders on their desktop which makes them automatically available on iPhone, iPad, Android or Windows device at any time, even if it is offline. In addition, our sales people also store their business documents and spreadsheets that they can view wherever they are, and work on and update them at home.
In addition, marketing and development teams use Novell Filr for project documents and files, HR share policy and other documents with employees and my sales teams are using Novell Filr for collaboration on key accounts. Personally, employees can also keep their private work related information stored and available when needed.
We have seen other customers reap the benefits of Novell Filr too. Instead of IT executives carrying secure documents with them on laptops that aren’t backed up, they now use Novell Filr to centralize files that can also be simply shared with other executives and viewed on their devices, therefore increasing productivity and ease of user whilst reducing risk.
In schools, teachers are able to share class information and students can collaborate with shared folders, whilst using their own devices and home computers. The benefits here is that the school now supports BYOD, no private information will ever exist in the cloud and there is a reduction in costly network traffic.
For architects and other project related people, Novell Filr has been well accepted for sharing and consolidating information with business partners and others, especially when mobile devices are being used in real time and on site.
One of the best things about deploying Novell Filr internally was that we found our employees across the whole organization wanted to use it so they promoted it amongst themselves and this in turn meant that early adoption was rapid. It was also the same with Novell iPrint.
Novell iPrint is an enterprise print solution that provides a centralized point where users can simply access any print resource, to any brand printer from any device, fixed or mobile. Novell iPrint Mobile is an extension to iPrint that allows mobile device users (even guests to the organization) to print from their device to any device in any office.
For example, we have an international hotel that now offers the ability for their guests to print from their devices in their rooms, we have corporate customers who allow visitors to print from their laptops or mobile devices, we have retailers who work in shopping centers that can complete a form with a customer on a tablet and immediately print a customer copy or print to obtain a signature, and our sales staff will often print their meeting notes on returning to the office.
When it comes to the trend of mobility and corporate file sharing, we have seen Indian companies starting to engage more. The city based users are very tech savvy due to India’s strong IT focus, which means that they will adopt technology quickly and easily, but as India is less regulated than parts of Australia, Europe and America, the corporate uptake has been less rapid, but growing.
On the other hand, Novell iPrint as a technology is perfect for the Indian market (especially government and financial) as many business processes are commonly paper based and organisations are not keen on spending to upgrade their fleet of printers. For those who are starting to use mobile devices in their business, we see that the printing requirement is a growth area and Novell iPrint Mobile, like Novell Filr, will become more utilized.
I look forward to where the future is heading for both print and file sharing. A paper based society will exist for many years and while mobility grows, print and mobile will be more commonly utilized in organizations, so users can get the same functionality as they do at home. For file sharing, we are past the entry level and into phases where we can support 10’s of thousands of corporate users and our development teams are adding the “nice to have” features.
File and print. They may be technologies everyone is familiar with, but as new technologies such as mobility come and take over, file and print adapts and continues being a part of every day life.
