Mobile Enterprise, a blog focused on mobile solutions for business, recently ran a piece on OfficeDrop’s new Android tablet app. (We are really excited about our new Android update – it still turns your Android phone into a scanner, but makes it even faster and easier to scan paper and upload and share using the cloud.)
The Mobile Enterprise piece, entitled “OfficeDrop Android, iOS Cloud Apps Help SMBs Improve Workflow” has a lot of great things to say about the updated OfficeDrop smartphone scanner apps. The article states: “OfficeDrop’s newest mobile apps turn any iOS or Android tablet or phone into a scanner, giving users the ability to scan multiple pages as one document simply by snapping a few photos. With just a few taps, users can instantly turn these photos into searchable PDFs, upload them to the cloud, and share them with others. A simple, streamlined user interface and faster search and sharing functions make the mobile workflow quicker and easier than ever before.”
Another great part of the article is that it talks about how customers are actually using OfficeDrop’s mobile products – “For example, a small business could use OfficeDrop’s mobile apps to manage its paper on the go. When an employee is on a business trip, she can snap photos of a multi-page contract with her phone, upload the entire PDF as a single document to the cloud and collaborate on it with her coworkers in minutes.”
We really appreciate the great press, and are that reporters are understanding our mission!
Why aren’t more small businesses going paperless? After all, paper is a pain! It’s hard to store, share and find. Yet small businesses are way behind the curve, when compared to big enterprise, on going paperless.
Why go paperless? Well, as we’ve written before, the biggest reason to go paperless, cited by over 50% of companies, is that improved search & sharing of business documents. In other words, it’s easier to find and share digital files vs. paper. Other reasons include increased productivity, faster response time to customers and the cost savings on saving physical storage space.
The digital office is getting closer and closer for many small businesses – again, something we’ve been blogging about for along, long time. To quote us, from last year, on the digital office, “In the digital office, you don’t have to wait for the printer to do its job or rely on snail mail to get important information. Instead, you get to keep all of your documents in one secure, organized place, where people can meet virtually to collaborate, share information across offices, and instantly locate anything with a search bar. The digital office is more effective because it utilizes new technology instead of stubbornly ignoring it.”
A piece on The Ecopreneurist asks why the paperless office has been so slow to come about. From the article, “In the past decade, paper consumption within the office has been on a slight but steady decline… However, the rate of conversion is still only a few percent per business year. This is especially true in the small and home business sectors.” However, there are three new cloud technologies that might help speed up the adoption of the paperless office, per the article. They are:
Paperless Engagement Solutions – basically, things that make it easy for you to keep your workflow and not have to print to share files. Thankfully OfficeDrop has that too!
Document Management – That’s pretty much what we are!
So, if you’re ready to save a few trees and be more productive, give OfficeDrop a shot. We’ve got free plans, so it doesn’t cost anything to get started going paperless.
We’ve been talking a ton about tablets, and are huge believers in how the tablet device is changing how people search files and share files. We’ve blogged a ton about the iPad and small businesses and how the iPad is making inroads into corporations. Google has also recently announced a new Android tablet called the Nexus 7 – a clear indication that Android, as a platform, is taking the tablet seriously.
That is right, the popular OfficeDrop Android app now is designed to run on the new Android tablets – both 7 inch and 10 inch tablets.
“Small businesses still use paper for up to 70% of day-to-day business tasks,” said OfficeDrop CEO & Cloud Computing Expert, Prasad Thammineni. “This update will make it possible for these users to quickly upload paper to the cloud with just a few taps. Our small business customers appreciate the speed and efficiency that OfficeDrop helps them achieve, and now even Android tablet users will be able to realize the benefits of the paperless office.”
How The New OfficeDrop Tablet Android App Works
Scan with your device’s camera.
Upload your scan into your OfficeDrop cloud storage account and it becomes a PDF ready to be searched, shared or organized.
The PDF is automatically saved onto your Windows PC if you upload it into a folder that you’ve synced using OfficeDrop’s Windows Sync Client (available for free on officedrop.com).
Then search for text in the scan from your Android device or from the web!
We want to highlight how easy it is to scan now on a tablet using OfficeDrop’s apps. Additionally, we’ve updated the OfficeDrop iPad app to make it easier to scan. We’ll highlight these changes in a future blog post, but basically we heard your feedback that holding the device to take a multipage PDF scan is pretty hard – so we’ve optimized the layout and user interface for scanning on the tablet.
Below is the press release we put out announcing our updated mobile apps/tablet app.
Cloud Scanning and Storage Apps Feature Multi-Page Scans, Faster Search and File Sharing to Make Going Paperless Easier Than Ever
July 5, 2012 — Cambridge, MA — Google Tablet? OfficeDrop saw it coming. Today, OfficeDrop announces major updates to its iOS and Android cloud scanning and storage apps, beginning with its first Android tablet app! OfficeDrop’s newest mobile apps turn any iOS or Android tablet and phone into a scanner, giving users the ability to scan multiple pages as one document simply by snapping a few photos. With just a few taps, users can instantly turn these photos into searchable PDFs, upload them to the cloud, and share them with others. A super-simple, improved user interface and faster search and sharing functions make the mobile workflow quicker and easier than ever before.
For example, a small business could use OfficeDrop’s mobile apps to manage their paper on the go. When an employee is on a business trip, she can snap photos of a multi-page contract with her phone, upload the entire PDF as a single document to the cloud and collaborate on it with her coworkers in minutes. (more…)
It’s the day before Independence Day here in the US, so let’s talk about some stats on European small businesses and cloud computing? Well, we thought the stats were interesting, and it’s just random timing to be honest! (If you want a US focused report on small businesses cloud adoption, check out our post from a couple of months ago here.)
The European stats are from the UK’s The Guardian. A few interesting statistics were:
”A recent survey by IDC found that almost every SME that uses cloud services saves money, with most lowering costs between 10% and 20%.”
“According to IDC, 64% of SMEs use at least one cloud-based service. That number is poised to skyrocket, especially when you consider the additional 25% of small businesses that have a concrete plan to use the cloud, or are at least thinking about it.”
“ IDC predicts that this increased efficiency will translate into global revenue increases totalling $1.1 trillion a year by 2015.”
The benefits of cloud computing for a small business pretty much the same, regardless of geography, as long as the business has a reliable internet connection. It’s good to know that Europe is also adopting cloud technologies.
Last week PC World published a piece on OfficeDrop’s recently announced Windows File Sync Client – and they liked it! The article, entitled “OfficeDrop Adds Right-click Upload Feature” was written by Angela Wood of PCWorld and talks about how easy it is to right-click any folder and upload the files to the cloud. Angela covers the following OfficeDrop features:
Right click to upload and sync folders to the cloud.
Sync2Linktm File Sharing – send a file or an entire folder to anyone via a simple link, right from the desktop.
OfficeDrop’s OCR and file search, including the ability to search files and their contents
The other thing we really like is PCWorld’s conclusion, which we’ve quoted below:
“Better than SugarSync?
OfficeDrop’s file-synching capabilities are similar to what you’ll get with any number of other services, ranging from Google Drive to SugarSync to Dropbox. What sets it apart from these competitors are its document-management features and this new right-click upload tool. Free accounts support one user, a maximum file size of 1GB, 50 pages of OCR storage per month, and 2GB of cloud storage. Sign up for a free account before the end of June, and OfficeDrop will boost your storage quota to 5GB.”
We are very excited to announce the launch of our Windows Desktop File Sync tool, which allows you to connect ANY folder to OfficeDrop’s cloud storage. All changes made in the folder will be reflected in your OfficeDrop account, and all files will available for access via the OfficeDrop iPhone app, Android scanner app, and iPad app. You can also scan using your phone and have the files automatically show up on your PC’s desktop!
Windows Sync Any Folder Video
See the Windows file sync in action in the following video.
Improved File Search
OfficeDrop also now has dramatically improved search via our web application. Now your cloud search just got more powerful! Search for file names, file types and the text within any document with text. Since you can also upload any file type into OfficeDrop, including files that do not have text, this file search will help you find files by searching for the files names. Learn more about using OfficeDrop’s improved search here.
Sync2Linktm File Sharing
You can share a file right from your Windows desktop in 3 easy steps using our Sync2Link File Sharing:
Sync a folder to the cloud using OfficeDrop’s Windows File Sync Client
Get a Share Link by Right click any file in the folder and select OfficeDrop >> Get Share Link
The link is automatically pasted into your clipboard, so you can put it into an email, Twitter, Skype or any other way you want to share it!
Learn more in the Sync2Link File Sharing video below.
Below if the press release announcing the updates. We hope you like the improvements!
OfficeDrop Dramatically Improves Desktop Sync and Search for Windows
Scouring the Cloud for Your Files is Simple with OfficeDrop
CAMBRIDGE, MA — JUNE 20, 2012 – Today, OfficeDrop announced a major upgrade for its Windows apps and online cloud storage platform, which now makes syncing files and searching the cloud as easy as it should be. Users can now instantly sync any folder with a simple right-click, as well as use OfficeDrop’s powerful search engine to find files by filename, words contained in the file, and upload date, among other data. This includes scanning to synced folders from mobile devices, which instantly places documents on a Windows PC.
“We want Windows users to know that there are app makers like OfficeDrop out there who are still building solutions for them,” said Prasad Thammineni, Co-Founder and CEO of OfficeDrop. “We know that 91% of small businesses operate on Windows, so this update will make our customers’ lives easier, right away. OfficeDrop has always been built specifically for the small business user, and this is no exception. Just wait until you see what we have planned for Windows 8!”
OfficeDrop believes that search results shouldn’t be ugly or hard to sort through, either. Their unique interface lets users search documents better than if they had the original paper, using thumbnail or thumbnail plus text result views that highlight the search term in the file, depending on their preference. This is more than just an aesthetic upgrade. Research shows that people remember their paper documents visually, so OfficeDrop lets them search that way, too.
And, what good is the cloud if it’s not easily shared? With OfficeDrop, users create a unique URL from any synced file. This makes it sharable with anyone, anywhere with internet access. We call it Sync2Link(tm) File Sharing. Simply right-click a synced file, choose “share as a link,” and use the URL to spread that file and spread on Twitter, Facebook, through email, however you like! Those with the link can view or download the file as they please. For security, users can revoke access, or remove links, as desirable.
As an added bonus, OfficeDrop has increased the size of its free cloud storage plans to 5 GB for new free users who sign up before the end of June!
OfficeDrop is a complete cloud solution for businesses, from digitizing documents for the cloud to storage accounts that are sharable with teams. To learn how OfficeDrop makes digital life simple with its scan-and-capture apps and services, visit www.officedrop.com.
Every business, large or small, needs a website. But how long can a business owner have the same site before feeling the need to do a redesign?
The truth is that you probably become tired of your site before your customers do, because you are likely to be staring at it a lot more than they are!
All simple, good ideas for making your site feel new without going through the effort of a full redesign.
I like to try to keep OfficeDrop’s site refreshed with new content, both to keep returning visitors engaged and also to keep the search engine bots coming back for more.
There is a recent article on Inc. by Penelope Trunk on how to survive your startup’s first year. While Penelope is writing from the perspective of a person who has founded three VC backed startups, some of her concepts really do apply to any entrepreneur is the early stages of getting a company going.
Her main points are:
Pick your location
Prepare your family
Don’t count on funding
Get sleep
Personally, the advice on preparing your family is one that I find very important. The amount of work – and even more importantly, stress – is huge when you are working with a new, unproven company. Penelope suggests, “And then negotiate boundaries that will make your spouse happy, and that you will be able to adhere to no matter what.” Good advice!
Cloud technology has helped the company grow its userbase without having to hire additional backend management. Additionally, his techs now spend less time in the office and more time out helping customers.
Fred’s Appliance on OfficeDrop
The following is a quote from the GigaOm piece, where Adam talks about how OfficeDrop fits into the picture.
“OfficeDrop was one of our last legs in becoming truly paperless. Anybody that we’re doing business with, we’re paperless with them if possible, but not all companies are at that level yet, so they are mailing us items that are important. Instead of sticking them in a file cabinet, we scan them and upload them right to OfficeDrop’s cloud,” Butcher says.”
Adam also has some great advice for companies looking to add cloud technology to their business:
“So what tips does Butcher have for small businesses in more traditional industries who are looking to go paperless and virtual like Fred’s? In short, minimize hardware. “Initially we made a very large investment in server space. We actually purchased a rack and servers – very costly. Now we lease cloud space, so we work 100 percent off the cloud-based server and that is one of the best moves that we have ever made,” Butcher says. “Granted the drawback is if you’re having internet interruptions then you’re going to be down, but I feel we have less exposure because all we have to do is drive home and we can work from home.””
Special thanks to Adam and Fred’s Appliance for speaking to GigaOm about OfficeDrop and the cloud!
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OfficeDrop’s Online Cloud Storage and Document Management Blog
OfficeDrop helps small businesses and home offices go paperless and manage their paper and digital documents online. OfficeDrop provides an award-winning online cloud storage service & Mac scanner software. In this blog, we’ll discuss cool ways customers are using our service to tame their paper problem and get organized. We hope to share tips and tricks we are learning as we help our clients scan, sync, search files and share files.
We’ll also highlight new features in our digital filing system, let you know what the press is saying about us and keep you up to speed with the goings-on at OfficeDrop! Paper. Digital. Anywhere.
