Startable – Healy Jones’ & Prasad Thammineni’s Blog

As Amazon announced their new tablets they also mentioned a new browser they had built – Amazon Silk. Silk promises to be the fastest browser ever, especially on a mobile device, because it uses Amazon’s cloud services to do a lot of the backend computing. In other words, your little tablet won’t have to do a lot of requests over the network and then work some computationally (sort of) difficult stuff to render web pages as you browse using Silk.

It’s an interesting idea, and one that is described pretty well in this video by Amazon:

Amazon Silk Video

What Silk Means

So why is Amazon, a company that now sells devices, trying to make the workload on your device less? I mean, shouldn’t they want to follow Apple’s iCloud strategy and push the compute to the device so people feel like they need to buy a new one every year as it gets slower and slower?? Why pay all that money for compute costs in the cloud (OK, it’s not that expensive for Amazon since they own the cloud, but still, it’s not free)?

DATA

I was going to spend the time writing up how brilliant this was – but Chris Espinosa has already written it better than I ever could; check out his post on the topic:

The “split browser” notion is that Amazon will use its EC2 back end to pre-cache user web browsing, using its fat back-end pipes to grab all the web content at once so the lightweight Fire-based browser has to only download one simple stream from Amazon’s servers. But what this means is that Amazon will capture and control every Web transaction performed by Fire users. Every page they see, every link they follow, every click they make, every ad they see is going to be intermediated by one of the largest server farms on the planet. People who cringe at the data-mining implications of the Facebook Timeline ought to be just floored by the magnitude of Amazon’s opportunity here. Amazon now has what every storefront lusts for: the knowledge of what other stores your customers are shopping in and what prices they’re being offered there. What’s more, Amazon is getting this not by expensive, proactive scraping the Web, like Google has to do; they’re getting it passively by offering a simple caching service, and letting Fire users do the hard work of crawling the Web. In essence the Fire user base is Amazon’s Mechanical Turk, scraping the Web for free and providing Amazon with the most valuable cache of user behavior in existence.

It’s awesome. And for sure worth the expense.

Now they just have to get people using the browser! I’m excited to try it out…

Finally, a funny:

Check out the recommended videos alongside the Amazon Silk Video

If I thought Google was smarter I’d think they’d put there there on purpose!

Tablet growth is going gangbusters! Bizrate Insights has a new report that shows tablet growth at a 51% CAGR for the next few years (I can’t find the piece, just a write up on online marketing trends here.) A slightly more dated chart shows how fast tablets are taking off:

Online Marketing Tends reports that:

“According to a new report by Forrester Research, in partnership with Bizrate Insights, the number of Americans owning tablet devices is forecast to increase at a compound annual growth rate of 51% between 2010 and 2015, while tablet commerce is expected to grow rapidly over the same period. 9% of surveyed online shoppers say they own a tablet device; among them, 78% own a smartphone as well, while 22% of tablet owners (2% of online shoppers) own a tablet only.”

That’s pretty quick. I’m starting to believe that the future will be dominated by tablets, at least as far as small business usage goes. And looks like Prasad Thammenini, my intrepid sometimes co-blogger, agrees. Here he is with a nifty new iPad2 keyboard that he just purchased:

I’m pretty excited about a new partnership my company has that just launched. OfficeDrop is working with Nuance’s PaperPort desktop filing system to bring the newest version of PaperPort, PaperPort 14, to the cloud.

The team here at OfficeDrop was able to connect our APIs to PaperPort 14′s desktop client, making it simple to right click any folder from within PaperPort 14 and automatically sync all files to the cloud. If you include the mobile apps we developed this means you can right click a folder and the text search, browse and share the folder and it’s contents from your phone. It’s pretty cool and the tech press seems to be getting it. You can buy PaperPort 14 at paperport.com, where you can also sign up for a free PaperPort Anywhere account. And the mobile apps are here:

• PaperPort Anywhere iPhone and iPad App
• PaperPort Anywhere Android App

Obviously preparing for this was a ton of work, which is why I’ve been totally silent on the blogging front. Hopefully now that we are launched I”ll have time to get back to posting more frequently!

Below is the press release by Nuance talking about PaperPort Anywhere.

Nuance Launches PaperPort Anywhere Cloud Service

Making it Easy for Millions to Organize, Access and Share All of Their Paper and Digital Documents, Anywhere and Anytime

BURLINGTON, Mass., August 2, 2011 — Nuance Communications, Inc. (NASDAQ: NUAN), a leading provider of speech and imaging solutions, today introduced PaperPort® Anywhere, a new cloud-based service that makes it easy to organize, access and share documents from nearly any PC and mobile device. PaperPort Anywhere lets users manage and access their documents in the cloud using web browsers, as well as using free apps from Nuance for Apple® and Google® Android® mobile devices.

The service uses the market-leading Nuance OmniPage® OCR (optical character recognition) engine to automatically create searchable documents from scanned and camera-captured documents, as well as faxes, making paper content as easy to search and find as digital documents. As a result, users can organize, access and share all of their document content on PaperPort Anywhere.

“There is a reason that recent surveys show over 51% of people still use paper files – it is in large part because current cloud services treat paper content as an afterthought,” said Robert Weideman, vice president and general manager for the Nuance Document Imaging Division. “PaperPort Anywhere goes further than other services by closing the content gap between paper and digital documents – making it easy to scan to the cloud, improving the way users manage both their scanned and digital documents, and by making cloud access easy and convenient.”

PaperPort Anywhere also integrates with the new release of Nuance PaperPort 14 for Windows®, the world’s most popular scanning and document management application for the PC, which was also announced today. PaperPort 14 provides automatic synchronization of Windows folders and files with PaperPort Anywhere. It also adds conversion of scanned and PDF documents into fully formatted word and spreadsheet files that can be edited on Windows, the Macintosh and through cloud services such as Google Docs and Microsoft Office 365. PaperPort 14 provides robust PDF capabilities, including the ability to create PDF from practically any application, and includes PDF-MRC, which creates scanned files that are up to eight times smaller than scanned PDF files without compression.

PaperPort Anywhere is valuable to anyone that works with documents, including the over 20 million registered users of Nuance desktop applications, and users of the more than five million seats of PaperPort that are deployed each year. PaperPort Anywhere includes free apps for Apple iPhone, iPad and Google Android devices, and is free for up to one gigabyte of searchable storage space. PaperPort Anywhere subscription plans include $9.99 per month for 10 gigabytes and $24.99 per month for 50 gigabytes of storage space.

PaperPort Anywhere Key Features and Benefits

PaperPort Anywhere makes it easy to organize, access, and share any document – both paper and digital – anywhere and anytime. Key features and benefits include:

• Organize All Your Documents in the Cloud. PaperPort Anywhere is more than cloud storage – it provides a better way to organize and use your documents. PaperPort Anywhere’s thumbnail and clip views of paper and digital documents are key features that help you quickly organize documents.
• Search and Find both Paper and Digital Documents. PaperPort Anywhere is powered by the Nuance OmniPage OCR engine, which provides the highest levels of accuracy for scanned documents and image PDF files, such as those from fax services. The best OCR means users can find indexed paper documents just as they do Word and spreadsheet files.
• Access and Use, Anywhere and Anytime. PaperPort Anywhere is accessible through any web browser at www.PaperPort.com, the web gateway to PaperPort Anywhere cloud services. Nuance also provides free apps for the Apple iPhone®, iPad® and Google Android devices, and supports Microsoft Windows through PaperPort 14.
• Share and Collaborate. PaperPort Anywhere makes it easy to share links to files stored on the site. The service also supports secure and permission-based emailing of files into PaperPort Anywhere accounts, making it easier than ever to collaborate and share documents with others.
• One Click Scan to Cloud. Only PaperPort Anywhere integrates with PaperPort 14 – the world’s most popular scanning and document management application for the PC. The combination results in unmatched document productivity and convenience.

Pricing and Availability

PaperPort Anywhere with up to one gigabyte of searchable storage is free. PaperPort Anywhere Premium with up to 10 gigabytes of storage is $9.99 per month and $24.99 a month for 50 gigabytes of storage. For additional information on PaperPort Anywhere visit www.PaperPort.com.

About PaperPort Anywhere

PaperPort Anywhere is a new, innovative cloud service from Nuance that makes it easy to scan, organize and share documents – anytime, from anywhere. PaperPort Anywhere is powered by OfficeDrop. It delivers enhanced search-indexing capabilities using Nuance OmniPage OCR.

Nuance Communications, Inc.

Nuance Communications, Inc. is a leading provider of speech and imaging solutions for businesses and consumers around the world. Its technologies, applications and services make the user experience more compelling by transforming the way people interact with information and how they create, share and use documents. Every day, millions of users and thousands of businesses experience Nuance’s proven applications. For more information, please visit www.nuance.com.

Trademark reference: Nuance, the Nuance logo, and OmniPage and PaperPort are registered trademarks or trademarks of Nuance Communications, Inc. or its affiliates in the United States and/or other countries. All other company names or product names referenced herein may be the property of their respective owners.

# # #

Media and Industry Analyst Contact:

Jennifer Shelgren

Nuance Communications, Inc.

Tel: (781) 565-4758

Email: jennifer.shelgren@nuance.com

Interesting research from Flurry again (they were the ones who put out the info that mobile app usage is topping regular web browsing). This time they have data showing that free or “freemium” app titles are generating more revenue than pure paid apps. From a MediaPost summary of the research:

Flurry shows that over the last six months, revenue from free-to-play game apps has overtaken that from paid apps. Among the top 100 grossing games in the App Store as of June, more than two-thirds (65%) of the revenue generated came from freemium games and 35% from paid games.

That’s nearly opposite the situation from six months ago, when paid game apps accounted for 61% of revenue and free titles, 39%. What’s changed since January? Peter Farago, vice president of marketing at Flurry, pointed out that Apple began counting in-app purchases toward app gross revenues at the end of 2010, reflecting the impact of that sales stream in its ranking of top-grossing titles.

Free apps generating more revenue than pure paid apps

So, this research is focused on games, but OfficeDrop is betting the same will be true for our b2b SaaS app. We switched to a freemium model earlier this week, mainly driven by the feedback we were getting in the app stores. App store people just expect to try stuff for free and don’t like free trials. We can’t get them to read the app description that talks about the free trial period; they just look at stars, download and then leave a nasty review without trying the service. Hopefully this freemium experiment will pay off for us. Initial web signups are promising, but it’s too early to tell!

People are now spending more time using mobile apps than they spend surfing the web! According to a report by Flurry released yesterday, a serious platform shift is happening in how people interact with data.

The report says:

…for the first time ever, daily time spent in mobile apps surpasses desktop and mobile web consumption. This stat is even more remarkable if you consider that it took less than three years for native mobile apps to achieve this level of usage, driven primarily by the popularity of iOS and Android platforms.

This is pretty big news. Check out the chart from the post:

Time spent using the internet is only growing at 16% year over year, but mobile app usage minutes is growing over 90% year over year. So it looks like mobile has got a lot more legs to grow on!

Flurry also reports that social networking and games account for almost 80% of the time spent on mobile apps. This stat doesn’t surprise me too much, as mobile gaming is really taking off. I am a little surprised about the social networking thing – what are they using, Facebook’s app? Or LinkedIn? Maybe Twitter, actually. I wonder how this fits with Facebooks HTML5 strategy?

This data fits with how OfficeDrop is seeing growth. Our Android app has really taken off and is now a huge percentage of our recent growth, and I’m excited for our other upcoming mobile offerings. I think this survey should help clear up any thoughts on the importance of mobile apps and consumer preferences.

iCloud is brilliant. My team has had the chance to look through the API, and it’s going to be very useful. But it’s also going to be very good for Apple, because it will really drive hardware processing power escalation. In other words, it’s a totally device focused strategy. Very slick Apple!

iCloud API – Look out Amazon!

First of all, iCloud is a direct challenge to Amazon’s cloud services – actually, just the storage part. This is because iCloud’s API is built to allow applications on the Mac, iPhone, iPad, iWhateverIsNext to store data in the cloud and then sync across the iUniverse. Totally cool. And totally competitive with Amazon S3 (Amazon Simple Storage Service). It’s a cloud based place to store data.

Amazon offers another cloud service – Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2). This allows companies (like OfficeDrop) to upload data and have complex computational processing done in the cloud vs. on a customers’ device. This is crazy powerful, because we have not had to build out complex data centers with expensive servers to do computationally complex things like OCR or powering our document search engine.

According to my team, iCloud doesn’t really offer cloud based compute – only storage with the ability to sync an application’s data up and down.

So, if you are building an app on the iPhone and using iCloud, where does the compute happen?

iCloud drives Device Processing Escalation

That’s right, with iCloud, processing has to happen on the device. The device Apple sells you. And if some high demand new app requires serious compute that your older iWhateverWasCoolSixMonthsAgo can’t handle, guess what? You’re in line at the Apple store upgrading your device! Brilliant Apple! It’s like Wintel all over again, but without the Intel part.

Another thing to look out for Amazon!

And it doesn’t stop there. Imagine you are a new iPhone app developer. Historically you’d fire up some Amazon instances for your compute and start using S3 for storing data in the cloud. Well now, you can get “free” storage in iCloud (Ok, well, the consumer ends up paying for it but it’s free to the developer!) So you don’t need to do all that heavy lifting for the online storage part. I know, I know, Amazon is much less lifting that building out your own storage and whatnot, but now you don’t even have to do that. So getting cloud storage, for an upstart app developer, is even easier than it used to be. So are you going to use EC2 for processing stuff? Or are you just going to try to let the device handle it? Well, if you are doing the MVP thing you are probably not going to bother to build any sort of processing on Amazon and are going to see if the device can handle the processing (no ifs, ands or buts, this lowers the barrier to entry for an app startup)… And, maybe it can, maybe it can’t but still, you never had to sign up with Amazon to launch.

And that is the part where iCloud really kicks Amazon in the teeth. Now, startups don’t even have to do anything with Amazon to launch their startups, and may not ever have to use Amazon’s cloud services at all. iCloud could remove entire generations of potentially successful startups from the Amazon web services ecosystem and instead bind them to Apple.

Anyways, this iCloud thing is going to be big.

Also, if you are looking to the OfficeDrop reaction to the iCloud announcement, here it is:

The team here at OfficeDrop was glued to the live updates on Apple’s new iOS and iCloud… and we got pretty excited.

While some pundits have been claiming that iCloud will kill existing document sync, access, collaboration and sharing startups, we think otherwise. OfficeDrop CEO, Prasad Thammineni, was quoted in Macworld and conveyed our excitement about the new announcement. From the Macworld article:

Prasad Thammineni, OfficeDrop’s CEO, said he saw opportunity. Apple’s new service, he said, isn’t necessarily oriented toward business-sized customers—but it could educate those customers about the advantages of cloud storage and expand his company’s market.

“It’s going to educate consumers to say ‘I want my data to go where I go.’ That will prompt customers and small businesses to say they want to do their data the same way,” Thammineni said. He added: “So for us, we see this as a big positive thing.”

We have reason to be so optimistic about Apple’s iCloud. When Microsoft began their “To the Cloud” campaign in November of 2010, we saw our keyword “cloud” related search traffic double from the previous month. And today, this traffic is up 5x what it was before Microsoft began educating the world about the cloud. (Note that while all search traffic for OfficeDrop has grown in that timeframe, it hasn’t grown anything like cloud related traffic. And there was a very distinct, positive change in the cloud related search traffic growth pre and post Microsoft campaign.)

Apple’s iCloud efforts will help propel cloud usage to the masses (or at least beyond the early adopters.) And since Apple is so laser focused on the consumer, OfficeDrop’s target customer base of small business owners will be left searching for a solution that meets their special needs. According to research that we’ve seen, last year only 11% of small businesses were using cloud based SaaS solutions – up from 8% the year before, but still a tiny percentage. And once you go cloud you are 4x more likely to try another cloud solution. If Apple can pull this off they will be the first baby-step into cloud services that our potential customers need!

Finally, our ScanDrop scanning software app thrives on scanning paper into people’s cloud based accounts, and is really designed for customers who use multiple cloud services. So one more strong cloud offering is quite good for ScanDrop, and will help our Mac ScanDrop scanner software revenue grow.

Ok I’ve got to brag a little here. OfficeDrop recently launched our newest mobile app, the OfficeDrop Android Paper-to-Go app, and we’ve had great success with new users and downloads. I’m working on a post about how SEO may be dying, at least for SaaS services, since the huge majority of our new users are coming from app marketplaces these days. I really think we are undergoing a significant shift in the way people find and buy software and web services… and I’m personally having a ton of fun trying to figure it out!

Anyways, here is some of the recent press OfficeDrop has gotten on our new Android app:

May 18, 2011

OfficeDrop: Scan Docs, Turn Them into PDF & Make Searchable (Android)

Using Paper-to-Go you can scan physical documents using your smartphone’s camera and store these documents … other file formats can be uploaded and processed as well. Read OfficeDrop’s Paper-to-Go Review on makeuseof…

Prasad just had a post published on TechCrunch. It’s about something we’ve been focusing on for a while – the cloud is making companies who should be competitors friendly. Entitled “Competing in the Cloud – Let’s be Frenemies,” it is our current “cloud manifesto.”

We are really thinking a lot about how to grow a cloud based SaaS business, and have learned a ton over the past year. OfficeDrop was one of the first startups to get into Amazon’s cloud services back in 2007, and we’ve noticed that cloud/SaaS software is very different from the packaged software business model.

Open APIs and integrations are really changing the way companies interact with each other. Startups that would once have tried to aggressively compete with larger players are now helping the big platform companies round out their product offerings, and large players who once would have squashed every startup in sight are now helping distribute competitive offerings.

OfficeDrop is really benefiting from these “frenemy” integrations – Google Docs, Evernote, FreshBooks and more have helped grow our business and make for happy customers. We aren’t trying to lock customers in and keep their data hostage. We understand that people want data portability and that our service is not a soup to nuts solution for all business cases. Anyways, we are really pleased that TC let us publish our thoughts. Please check out the post!

A new survey claims that over half of consumers are aware of the cloud, only 9% say they understand what it is. And surprise, younger people are more interested than older ones!

I’m very pleased to announce that OfficeDrop has launched our first app in the new Mac App Store. ScanDrop Mac Scanner Software connects your Mac’s scanner directly with popular cloud storage provides like Google Docs, Evernote and OfficeDrop’s own cloud filing system. I’ll keep you updated as to how this new distribution channel does for us, especially since this is a paid download. Go to our listing here: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/scandrop/id412518240?mt=12

We are launching the app for $1.99 in the app store, although we “pre-released” ScanDrop with a great piece of press from Lifehacker last Friday. You can also learn more about ScanDrop on our Mac Scanner Software page.