iCloud is great news
iCloud is great news for the cloud industry as a whole. As everyone knows, the genius of Steve Jobs is to show everyone the importance of “sexy” in technology (for lack of a better word) – take an existing technology, and make it so compelling, so beautiful, that people can’t wait to lay their hands on that sleek shiny new thing.  He did that with iPhone, and repeated it with iPad.

The same could well happen with iCloud. The cloud has been around in the consumer market for more than a decade, and the business world has finally embraced it in the last couple of years. But Steve Jobs’ visibility and marketing genius could make the “cloud” meme so commonplace, that no cloud vendor ever has to lose hair again trying to explain to a prospect what the cloud is.

However, iCloud is not a team tool, nor is it intended to be.

iCloud is not for collaboration

Firstly, iCloud is designed as a personal data management tool. You have a personal account, which you use to access data across the iPhone, iPad and Mac. It simply has no “sharing” or “groupware” functionality.

Secondly, iCloud is not a traditional “cloud” solution. It has no web-browser access option, which is the cornerstone of most cloud solutions. All data (music, mail, apps) must be accessed on local applications on the iPhone, iPad or the Mac desktop. Therefore, in effect, the cloud is invisible in the background, and it pushes and synchronizes data between local applications. It has been argued that this model is simply not suitable for collaboration, which is more about everyone accessing a common instance of data on the cloud and working on it. In the “sync” model, an instance of the data is pushed locally, and changes synced back to the master copy on the cloud. The more the number of users working on that bit of data, the more complex the situation is.

Thirdly, iCloud restricts users to the Apple ecosystem. It effectively excludes users who prefer to have online access to their data, access it on their PC, or want to access it on one of the myriad mobile devices around in addition to iPhone and iPad.

HyperOffice lets you collaborate on Apple devices

However, quite undeniably, there is a segment of users and businesses who work primarily in the Apple environment, and want a solution that will let them share data in the Apple ecosystem. At HyperOffice, we have made a constant attempt to make our solutions compatible with an ever larger number of popular business environments. We have kept a constant eye on various Apple devices as they have gained importance in the businesses world, and continued to add support.

HyperOffice is the ideal solution for businesses looking to access and share corporate email, contacts, calendars and other information across their iPhone, iPad and Mac devices, and beyond.

Here is how HyperOffice supports each of these devices:

iPhone: HyperOffice support all mobile devices based on ActiveSync. This means iPhone users can push and wirelessly sync their business email, contacts and calendars on their devices. Since HyperOffice is a team solution, users can even share iPhone contacts and calendars with other team members. Anytime you create a meeting or edit a contact, you can choose to let everyone in your team know immediately.

Plus, HyperOffice is optimized for access from the iPhone Chrome browser. Users can access advanced HyperOffice collaboration software tools like shared documents, projects, forums, and workspaces right from their iPhone.

iPad: In addition to iPhone, HyperOffice also supports synching with the native mail, contact and calendar apps just like iCloud. Only, you can even share this information with team members. Besides, users can access HyperOffice features from their iPad Chrome browser.

Mac: HyperOffice allows synching with the native mail, contacts and calendars of Mac using a third party tool called SyncJE. Entourage in turn, is designed to automatically synchronize with these native Mac apps. In effect, Mac users can access their corporate mail, calendars and contacts from the native apps of Mac or entourage, and keep them in sync across devices.

Beyond Apple: Unlike iCloud, HyperOffice by no means restricts users to sharing and collaborating on information only in the Mac universe. All of HyperOffice’s features can be accessed from any PC or Mac web browser in the world. Support for mobile devices is also not restricted to iPhone and iPad, and fully extends to phones like Android, Nokia, Windows Mobile and even BlackBerry. Plus, people who are addicted to Outlook, may continue to use Outlook to access and share mail, contacts, calendars and tasks using our Outlook synchronization functionality.

So, if you are a Apple die hard, and looking to fully leverage your shiny Apple gadget to collaborate with teams, do hit us up.

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