Woobius launches simple collaboration solution

Friday, 3 July 2009

Woobius, a new low-cost file-sharing and project collaboration solution has been launched. Described as “simply simple”, Woobius is targeted at architects, engineers and other design professionals needing to share drawings and other documents with their team.

The system has a rapidly expanding user base - already over 3,000-strong - attracted by its ease of use. As a web-based Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platform, it is accessible from virtually any internet-connected computer. Unlike rival services, projects can be established on Woobius in seconds, while the simple interface enables a rapid start to team collaboration. The Woobius team believes the service makes advanced collaboration tools a viable option for even the most modest projects.

Woobius Ltd was founded in 2007 by London, UK-based architect Bob Leung (formerly of Fosters + Partners, now at Make Architects), technologist Daniel Tenner, and others with background in architecture, software and marketing. It is based in Battersea, London.

Frustrated with existing construction industry software solutions, Woobius’ CEO Bob Leung wanted to develop a solution so intuitive to use that it would require no offsite training. He opted for the SaaS approach to avoid software installations or downloads, so that users can sign-up and start using the service immediately.

He explains: "Design teams often favour web-based systems which allow them to share a single secure online information repository. However, existing construction-oriented systems tend to be time-consuming to implement, costly to manage, and complex to use.

"Woobius has been expressly designed by architects for architects and other designers, and is a simple-to-use system that can be used to run a project instantly and cheaply without any special training.”

A Beta version of Woobius was first used on live projects by Make in mid 2008. By mid-June 2009, the initial 15-strong user community had expanded - almost exclusively through word-of-mouth recommendation - to over 3,000 people, drawn from over 200 companies, working on over 100 projects in some 32 countries.

Woobius’ online project collaboration and document management system can be accessed by any internet-connected computer equipped with a browser and Adobe Flash Player. Woobius hosts project data in a secure location and allows secure access by any authorised member of the relevant project team while maintaining a full record of all user interactions with the system.

Leung says the principle advantages include:
· No limit on the number of documents stored, or on the volume of uploads and downloads
· No limit on the number of users - this immediately encourages sharing and collaboration
· Apart from the Flash Player (which many computer users will already have), there is no need to download third-party software applications, and no specialist IT set-up is required
· Immediate online access to the Woobius service
· No training requirement - Woobius is designed to be user-friendly and intuitive to use
· Complete user control - Woobius users can add users, amend projects and alter storage requirements without intervention from the service provider
· High-level security - Woobius employs bank-grade encryption and is hosted in a secure data centre offering 99% guaranteed availability of data, 24/7.

He concludes: "Woobius fits a market gap between free file-sharing sites, in-house generic document management systems and existing construction-oriented collaboration platforms. It has none of the security headaches of FTP or similar locally hosted tools, and none of the complexities of high-end construction solutions. We look after the bits and bytes while our users reap all the advantages of our surprisingly simple-to-use Software-as-a-Service application."

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