The news from these two past weeks allows us to closely follow the technical hiccup which has occurred on the Sidekick mobile phones associated with T-Mobile and Microsoft, resulting in the loss of several thousands of subscribers’ personal data due to a maintenance operation which turned out badly.

In summary, a problem occurred at the manufacturer (Danger, subsidiary of Microsoft) servers (hosted in the cloud) and as a result, the personal data stored on the phones – unfortunately delivered without any backup software – were purely and simply erased

This will result in a lot more fear than pain, since the companies involved will restore almost completely all of the data, but nonetheless these subscribers came close to a disaster!

Obviously traumatizing, this event immediately generated a lot of questions – quite legitimate – on the security front. Basically, what one can expect to find in the cloud and the danger that this technology potentially represents.

Consequently, after all of the legitimate enthusiasm surrounding the cloud shown in the press these last months, we heard just heard the worst about cloud-computing!

Then, what is it really? A few days ago (10/20/09), Gartner declared that Cloud Computing was to be placed first in IT investment priorities in terms of 2010 (http://bit.ly/3dNGom). Does Gartner show an unawareness of the security issues? Of course, not!

It is the same for the cloud-computing as it is for any company’s strategic application: it should be made safe and highly secure.

In conclusion, two precautions impossible to circumvent (our priority at ftopia, of course!) are to be taken in order to avoid the consequences of a technical failure: 1) your data must be automatically made redundant on geographically distant servers and 2) it must be synchronized with your PC, which represents an additional security measure that makes a great difference in the event of breakdown – even temporary – of one or more servers.

First of all, it’s now possible to add subfolders in your spaces. Subfolders are used to gather files, much in the same way as you do on your PC.

We had initially chosen not to propose this feature, in order to prioritise the spaces’ simplicity and ease of use… but you spoke and we listened! We owe it to you and here it is, but be informed that you can decide to use it or not at the level of each room.

Another much anticipated feature is the ability to send an e-mail containing a download link, in order to make it possible for an external person to download one or more documents (of course they must have permissions to the room!). You can do it from now on by using the actions menu on the files. You will be even be able to add a message to your recipients.

Lastly this week we announce the beta program of our synchronization apps on Windows. This application gives you access to your ftopia rooms from your Windows explorer, without having to open your browser. If you wish to test this version in “avant-première” and give us your feedback (warts and all!), send us an e-mail to beta@ftopia.com.

For those who prefer to take advantage of the beach, we wish you a good holiday and please use suncream! If you’re in the UK or Ireland, take an umbrella. It will be of more use

www.ftopia.com can provide branded datarooms at a fraction of the cost and provide a legal professional with the tools to invite members (clients) and configure permissions in these virtual data rooms. The data is 100% secure and encrypted between the client PC and the server.

ftopia. Simply Share.

“Disaggregation” or splitting up businesses into silos provides scale and devolution of control. One major challenge faced by organisations is information sharing in this new world of work. If business units are either duplicated between these silos or merely separated by geography, how can information flow? The organisational design may not have factored this into the equation. This could be best characterised as the “price of spread”.

The HR function in the US parent of a multinational organisation will have devolved HR functions in each or at least most of its subsidiaries. However, employees within that HR function in the US will need to collaborate and share information with HR employees regardless of their locations. These HR users are not technologists and will use email as the default information sharing tool. For the parent Company, having employees wander the globe with sensitive employee data on laptops or PDA’s is a potential legal nightmare. Equally, the HR employees in the US will need to author and redact documents with HR teams around the globe as employment law differs from jurisdiction to jurisdiction.

This is the kind of high level issue that collaboration technologies like SharePoint and Lotus Notes were designed to address. SharePoint is a train wreck and Notes is dead. Where to go?

If you have teams of users who need to create ad-hoc, secure file sharing workspaces, check out www.ftopia.com.

ftopia. Simply Share.

Don’t expect that the volume of content will diminish any time soon. 

One of the biggest culprits of the information overload is email. Many of us are already slaves to email.  We use our inbox as a filing cabinet. This behaviour can be difficult to change. 
“If I need to share a document with Mary, I’ll email  it to her”. This is a 30 year habit which a technology such as ftopia seeks to break. By saving the documents centrally, the volume and sizes of emails is reduced and users feel less inclined to keep duplicates of data on their PC’s and laptops.

 ftopia is ideal for sharing content of the following types:

•  Documents
• PDF’s
• Presentations
• Spreadsheets
• .. and much more…

The best evangelists for this new mode of collaboration are those converts from email to central collaboration systems like ftopia. They can see that this is a significant advancement in document sharing compared to email. Grab that inbox by the horns and add a line to your email signature like:

“if you think the attachment is too big, it probably is. Let’s share it on ftopia”.

“All I want is:”

• To be able to exchange documenation in a secure and auditable way
• To be “up and running” in 5 minutes
• To be self-sufficient without the help of anyone from an IT department!

The common issues:

• Hardware costs
• Software costs
• Authentication(how do we know who they are?)
• User training(it has to be simple)
• Impact on existing IT resources
• I haven’t the time to be dealing with all of this!

Traditional solutions to this have been expensive to procure and difficult to manage. Who for example, would manage permissions on the sites? IT? Surely they are busy enough!

The game has moved on.With the advent of software “in the cloud”, organisations of all sizes are continually putting their faith in hosted solutions such as ftopia. With ftopia, businesses or professionals can create secure data rooms into which they can place documents and administer the access to those documents. Remember, email is not secure. Give your colleagues and business partners the “single version of the truth” in terms of a single instance of the documents. Give them ftopia.

We are both pleased and proud to launch today the first official version of ftopia!

It is always difficult to press the red button .. There’s always a feeling that an essential function is lacking, a critical explanation is missing, or that we’re not quite ready yet to communicate with our customers etc.

We have lots of improvements planned and under development! Those of you who have tested the beta version haven’t been short of ideas, many of which will be converted in features and launched later this year. However, we have chosen to open the service without waiting anymore, and release new features on an ongoing basis, applying agile development methods.

Hence this blog, where we will regularly introduce actual and planned ftopia new services. You are welcome to discuss and comment them here.

We will also use the blog to share our experience in developing an internet business as ftopia. Why do this rather than just publish news about the company?
There are two answers to that. First, we are on a very dynamic market, where the needs are huge – but also where the offerings are multiplying at a dizzying speed. In such an environment, technological innovation is rarely sufficient. It is the relationship that we can forge with our customers and partners who can make a difference – sharing ideas, taking your advice, increasing opportunities to tailor  to your expectations not only our technology but also our business practices and our technical support.

As the Hollywood line goes …”help us to help you”.”