As many of you are aware, we recently polled Egnyte customers to get feedback on our service and industry. Thanks to all who took the time to complete it – we sincerely appreciate it!
One of the reasons we did the survey was to better understand your reasons for selecting Egnyte, as well as to determine your comfort level with cloud solutions today. As you know, we have worked very hard over the past year to deliver the Egnyte product based on the needs of our customers. Following this survey, it is crystal clear that hybrid solutions like Local Cloud will bring peace of mind as more and more businesses like yourself move toward adopting on-demand virtual storage.
Among some key data findings we wanted to share:
- Almost half (48%) of small businesses identified trust and security as top attributes for selecting an on-demand or cloud-based file server. Interestingly, 27% of respondents said that the product’s ease of use carried more weight in their decision to select a service provider than price and performance (23%). Customer service (7%) and ability to scale with the business (4%) was listed last.
- 99% of small business respondents validated that Internet outages can be detrimental to business. In fact, the survey showed that if the internet was down for only one hour, over half (51%) would be moderately impacted and nearly a quarter of respondents (20%) severely impacted.
- To gain small business owner’s trust, 66% of respondents said that offering hybrid solutions that connect online and offline was most important, while 54% said that providing exceptional customer service, such as 24/7 helplines with live support comes second.
Aside from helping us understand what our customers are thinking, we also hope that this is validation for you that we are moving in the right direction. As one of the few service providers to deliver hybrid cloud solutions, it is our goal to ensure that all our customers conquer their fear of flying in the cloud.
If you are interested in viewing the complete data results, feel free to download the survey results.
We have also issued a press release.
Monday, June 29, 2009
Friday, June 19, 2009
Solving a Benefits Insurance Problem with Egnyte
In the process of installing insurance benefits at companies, I've witnessed the fact that despite the prevalence of technology, some insurance brokers and insurance underwriters still live in the Dark Ages. OK -- maybe I am exaggerating, but there are inefficiencies in their practices that translate into costly wastes of time.
Imagine this -- the process involves having an employee fill out an insurance benefits application (around 4 or 5 pages). It has to be signed. Multiply that by 15 employees for example. That could be 75 pages total that the employer has to fax to the insurance benefits broker. The insurance benefits broker then has to review them and then fax them over to the underwriter. The underwriter reviews the applications and most of the time will have questions because the clarity of the applications gets lost in fax transmission.
When time is of the essence (and it usually is), some employers and brokers take the desperate measure of emailing the applications. Of course, that is a big "no-no" because that will violate HIPAA since emailing is not secure.
The inefficiency and security issues can be resolved with a secure file server that can be accessed by both internal and external players. The scenario I described above assumes that the employer, insurance broker, and underwriter do not have a secure file server in place. Either the insurance broker or the underwriter should have a secure file service in place in order to streamline the benefits installation process.
Egnyte can help insurance brokers and underwriters eliminate the inefficiencies and maintain the required security. We offer an On Demand File Server (ODFS) that can be accessed securely by multiple parties. This can result in saving money and enhancing the level of customer service to the employer.
Imagine this -- the employer logs in and drops the 15 insurance benefits applications into the secure Egnyte ODFS. The broker and the underwriter log in and retrieve the applications. Done.
Imagine this -- the process involves having an employee fill out an insurance benefits application (around 4 or 5 pages). It has to be signed. Multiply that by 15 employees for example. That could be 75 pages total that the employer has to fax to the insurance benefits broker. The insurance benefits broker then has to review them and then fax them over to the underwriter. The underwriter reviews the applications and most of the time will have questions because the clarity of the applications gets lost in fax transmission.
When time is of the essence (and it usually is), some employers and brokers take the desperate measure of emailing the applications. Of course, that is a big "no-no" because that will violate HIPAA since emailing is not secure.
The inefficiency and security issues can be resolved with a secure file server that can be accessed by both internal and external players. The scenario I described above assumes that the employer, insurance broker, and underwriter do not have a secure file server in place. Either the insurance broker or the underwriter should have a secure file service in place in order to streamline the benefits installation process.
Egnyte can help insurance brokers and underwriters eliminate the inefficiencies and maintain the required security. We offer an On Demand File Server (ODFS) that can be accessed securely by multiple parties. This can result in saving money and enhancing the level of customer service to the employer.
Imagine this -- the employer logs in and drops the 15 insurance benefits applications into the secure Egnyte ODFS. The broker and the underwriter log in and retrieve the applications. Done.
Friday, June 12, 2009
On the road with Egnyte
I recently spent a week outside the US and got to actually put the cloud to the test on the road. One of my stops was Florence, Italy - the birthplace of the renaissance and tucked away in the scenic region of Tuscany. I wasn’t sure what to expect in terms of technology. I was pleasantly surprised.
My apartment, a short walk from the historic center of the city was equipped with wireless, sporting a 0.5 Mbps upload speed– beats what I get at home most of the time. I was able to comfortably access our Egnyte file server (we eat our own dog food!) and stay connected with my crew back in the office.
I was really thrilled to meet one of our customers, Jennifer, who lives in Florence and works with a New York based financial services company. Over a cappuccino, Jennifer shared with me how their team is completely spread out and works together using a portfolio of cloud based solutions (Egnyte being one of them).
Just a couple of years back, this probably would have been difficult to pull off.
Viva La Cloud!
My apartment, a short walk from the historic center of the city was equipped with wireless, sporting a 0.5 Mbps upload speed– beats what I get at home most of the time. I was able to comfortably access our Egnyte file server (we eat our own dog food!) and stay connected with my crew back in the office.
I was really thrilled to meet one of our customers, Jennifer, who lives in Florence and works with a New York based financial services company. Over a cappuccino, Jennifer shared with me how their team is completely spread out and works together using a portfolio of cloud based solutions (Egnyte being one of them).
Just a couple of years back, this probably would have been difficult to pull off.
Viva La Cloud!
Friday, May 29, 2009
Since the launch of the Egnyte Local Cloud and some initial hiccups, we are finding that customers "want" to have the local cloud more than the "need" to have it. This reinforces the thought that wanting to have a local copy of some of the files/folders combined with all files being available in the cloud, is what a lot of users feel comfortable with. Analyzing this further, despite the vaunted ubiquity of the internet, customers want "off-line" access.
Building on the launch of Local Cloud on direct attached storage (DAS), we are working on releasing the Local Cloud on a corporate shared resource like a NAS device. Hopefully, we will deliver this by the June end timeline.
Meanwhile, adding to the increasing usage of Egnyte as a content repository to be shared securely or publicly, we have added more "ad-hoc" sharing capabilities i.e. Public Folders that do not require authentication.
Building on the launch of Local Cloud on direct attached storage (DAS), we are working on releasing the Local Cloud on a corporate shared resource like a NAS device. Hopefully, we will deliver this by the June end timeline.
Meanwhile, adding to the increasing usage of Egnyte as a content repository to be shared securely or publicly, we have added more "ad-hoc" sharing capabilities i.e. Public Folders that do not require authentication.
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
A Virtual Team Profile
One of our customers, Stephen O’Brien, entrepreneur and founder of Espressi, Inc., has been using his Egnyte On Demand File Server (ODFS) since October 2008. I’ve kept in touch with Stephen because the company story is so intriguing to me. Based in San Jose, California, Espressi is a startup that produces and sells a hand held espresso machine.
Stephen needed a low-cost solution to help him securely share files and collaborate with his virtual team members. At first, team members were spread throughout Silicon Valley. But as Stephen needed to add expertise and talent from the “coffee corridor” of Seattle, Portland, and San Francisco, the ODFS solution scaled with him. The ODFS also traveled with him, as Stephen traveled out of the U.S. to Australia and Fiji.
Espressi officially launched at the Specialty Coffee Association of America Expo in Atlanta just last month. Its product – the mypressi TWIST – won Best New Product at the show, which is quite a validation in the coffee industry (see mypressi.com). Absolutely, it means company growth, and growth on a global scale.
It will be exciting to watch as Espressi’s ecosystem becomes more defined and grows to include investors, distributors, and espresso lovers from all over the world. And the Egnyte ODFS will scale with Espressi along the way.
Stephen needed a low-cost solution to help him securely share files and collaborate with his virtual team members. At first, team members were spread throughout Silicon Valley. But as Stephen needed to add expertise and talent from the “coffee corridor” of Seattle, Portland, and San Francisco, the ODFS solution scaled with him. The ODFS also traveled with him, as Stephen traveled out of the U.S. to Australia and Fiji.
Espressi officially launched at the Specialty Coffee Association of America Expo in Atlanta just last month. Its product – the mypressi TWIST – won Best New Product at the show, which is quite a validation in the coffee industry (see mypressi.com). Absolutely, it means company growth, and growth on a global scale.
It will be exciting to watch as Espressi’s ecosystem becomes more defined and grows to include investors, distributors, and espresso lovers from all over the world. And the Egnyte ODFS will scale with Espressi along the way.
Friday, April 24, 2009
Does the Cloud let you work harder?
One observation I have made over the last year, which positively amazes me, is the work hours of our customers. The SMB customers we serve are some of the hardest working people I have ever seen.
Jeff, who runs a construction firm on the east coast sometimes calls our tech support line past midnight; Brook, who runs his clean tech company in Southern Cal, travels all over the world, working many times using his iPhone; and Sean, whose company makes really great HD accessories, replies to my emails at 2 AM EST, sounding every bit energetic in his response.
The availability of “always on” services now makes it possible to work anywhere (or everywhere!) and anytime (or all the time!). For us at Egnyte, this lends a whole new meaning to uptime and ease of access and raises the bar for what we have to do.
Our customers inspire us to do so!
Jeff, who runs a construction firm on the east coast sometimes calls our tech support line past midnight; Brook, who runs his clean tech company in Southern Cal, travels all over the world, working many times using his iPhone; and Sean, whose company makes really great HD accessories, replies to my emails at 2 AM EST, sounding every bit energetic in his response.
The availability of “always on” services now makes it possible to work anywhere (or everywhere!) and anytime (or all the time!). For us at Egnyte, this lends a whole new meaning to uptime and ease of access and raises the bar for what we have to do.
Our customers inspire us to do so!
Friday, April 17, 2009
Enterprise buying patterns are changing
When we started Egnyte, the target market was SMB - defined as 1-99 person companies. Within a short span, building on the initial successful adoption, we expanded that to 1-500 person companies.
For the past few months, we have been signing customers which are departments within large enterprises. For example, we recently closed a 500 seat deal. Interestingly, we never directly marketed to companies of this size, yet they found us. Seems like a confluence of three factors - better awareness of Egnyte, increasing comfort with cloud based infrastructure solutions (Egnyte On Demand File Server) and the economy - working in favor of subscription based services i.e. conversion of capex dollars to opex dollars.
Also, the local cloud solution that was launched in mid February of this year, providing the comfort of having a local copy of data for that "just in case" concern, is working well for us.
For the past few months, we have been signing customers which are departments within large enterprises. For example, we recently closed a 500 seat deal. Interestingly, we never directly marketed to companies of this size, yet they found us. Seems like a confluence of three factors - better awareness of Egnyte, increasing comfort with cloud based infrastructure solutions (Egnyte On Demand File Server) and the economy - working in favor of subscription based services i.e. conversion of capex dollars to opex dollars.
Also, the local cloud solution that was launched in mid February of this year, providing the comfort of having a local copy of data for that "just in case" concern, is working well for us.
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