Review of InstaColl, Feb 22

I received an email last night from the CEO of InstaColl, an Indian-based startup offering a real-time collaboration service for Microsoft Office documents. Sumanth asked if I would review its soon-to-be-released offering, and provide constructive criticism in preparation for launch in March. Given that I am concurrently writing up the third pillar of IT-enabled team productivity -- that being real-time joint editing and review of documents -- I jumped at the opportunity.

Key Capabilities of InstaColl
InstaColl is a “data-centric collaboration” offering, which means that users collaborate around the data involved, not the application specifically. Here's my summary of its key capabilities:

• Support for Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents. InstaColl enables users to share Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents.


• Real-time Co-Editing of Documents. Two people can co-edit documents in real-time. Changes made by either are displayed to the other party.


• Support for Immediate or Scheduled Meetings. InstaColl enables users to click a button in Word, Excel or PowerPoint to hold an immediate real-time sharing meeting. Alternatively, a meeting can be scheduled for a later time, along with an agenda.


• Windows-only Support. Users must be on a Windows machine, with Internet Explorer. InstaColl does not support Mac or Linux clients.


• Peer-to-Peer and Server-Based. By default, InstaColl works peer-to-peer, but if there are firewall issues, documents are saved to the hosted InstaColl infrastructure and shared over common browsing ports to get around firewall limitations.


• Meeting invites shared by email. When wanting to share a document or screen sharing session with another user, the meeting initiator clicks a button to generate an email message with joining instructions. They just need to fill out the name of the invitee ... the rest is generated automagically.

InstaColl claims to be the "first data-centric collaboration" provider, but I thought that honor clearly sat with Advanced Reality.

Neat Things about InstaColl
Here’s what I liked about the InstaColl offering:

• It Works. InstaColl installed on two of my PCs, and enabled me to do screen sharing, Word sharing, and Excel sharing. One of my PCs didn’t have PowerPoint installed, so I couldn’t test that.


• It is Extensible. The InstaColl client supports traditional screen sharing as well as specific sharing of Word, Excel and PowerPoint files. Changes to Excel spreadsheets are distributed one cell at a time. When a reviewer hits Enter in a cell, their changes are shared with the other person.


• Supports Edits from Both Parties. Either party in the sharing session can make changes to the Word document, the Excel spreadsheet, or the PowerPoint slide show. The meeting initiator controls the session by default, but the invited party can request control. At any point in time, the initiator can take control back.


• Edits are Marked with the Name of the Reviewer. When changes are made by either party, they are color-coded to the reviewer. Each attendee shows with a different color down the right-hand side of the InstaColl session.

Concerns about InstaColl
I have some concerns about InstaColl:

• It takes users away from the Office applications. When a user starts an InstaColl session, the document or spreadsheet they were working on in Word or Excel is closed and re-loaded into the InstaColl client. Whilst the InstaColl client is easy-to-use, it is a different environment. Sharing of Word documents is the most different thing, as the document is converted to Rich-Text Format and displayed with a cut-down screen editor. The Excel support appears to be done differently, with InstaColl merely being a wrapper around a plug-in Excel component. I couldn’t test the PowerPoint sharing.


• It doesn’t check the identity of the remote participant. Someone with a different email address can sign into the collaboration session if they know the passcode. There should be two levels of checking: is the email address the originally specified one, and is the passcode correct?


• It requires a software installation at both ends. It is necessary for both parties to install the InstaColl client because both are able to edit the document, but it is a potential roadblock to adoption. Perhaps if the original author only wants to show the document to the other party, and not permit them to change it, there could be a Glance-style option of zero-install for the remote participant.


• Either user can save a copy of the document. Both participants are able to save a copy of the document to their local machine. This can cause a problem if the original author doesn’t want to give that ability to the remote participant, either because it leaves old versions of documents lying around, or there are intellectual property restrictions. It should be an option for the initiator of the sharing session to disable the ability for the remote participant to save the document.

Strategic Advice to InstaColl
My recommendations to InstaColl:

• Change the description of the service. Users are promised that InstaColl makes “Word”, “Excel” and “PowerPoint” collaborative. Actually, I don’t think it does. It makes Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, and PowerPoint presentations collaborative by putting them into the InstaColl client. Be correct in the way you describe what happens.


• Get a proper SSL certificate for your installation server. A self-generated trusted root certificate is not the best thing to do, as every new user will get a pop-up prompt noting that your server is not validated with an external party. Visit Thawte or VeriSign, and get a proper one. Pop-up dialogue boxes during installation put people off.


• Seek partnerships with hardware manufacturers to avoid end-user installation. In an ideal world, InstaColl would work out-of-the-box when I purchase a new machine from Dell, HP or Toshiba, due to pre-installation. Sure, it’s not easy to pull off … but, it’s important.


• Offer a corporate edition for inhouse deployment. Many prospective enterprise customers won’t want to use an external hosted service for collaboration around business documents. You need to offer a version of it for deployment within the firewall.


• Integrate with Instant Messaging Clients. I know that meeting initiators can copy and paste the meeting invite into an IM session, but work in an even tighter way by integrating the InstaColl client directly with key IM clients … MSN Messenger, AOL IM, and Yahoo Messenger. In the corporate space, its Lotus Sametime and MSN Live Communications Server.


• Do the Mac Thing. I see increased traction in the market for Mac, and traction that will only increase due to constant worries and concerns about how insecure and vulnerable Windows has become. You need Mac support.


• Support Firefox. IE is too riddled with bugs, vulnerabilities and other nasties to be the only long term platform that you support. Start working on Firefox support.

Strategic Advice to Potential Users
Evaluate InstaColl as a potential solution, once it is released to market as a Version 1.0 product in March. There are capabilities in here that are much better than Citrix GoToMeeting; for example, the fact that changes are marked with the name of the reviewer, instead of the name of the original author.

Resources for Further Investigations
InstaColl Home Page
Quick Tour
Create a new InstaColl account

What Do You Think?
What’s your reaction to InstaColl and its ilk in the marketplace? Is there a valid market for a product that offers this? Is real-time joint editing and review of documents a strategic need for team members? Please share your thoughts via a comment, or drop me a line at michael.sampson@shared-spaces.com.

Attention Vendors: If you want a confidential review of your product or product strategy, please get in contact. Shared Spaces offers a Vendor Product Strategy Review & Input consulting service.

Update: Please see my second posting on this, Clarifications on InstaColl, Feb 25

Comments

[Tris Hussey]

I was contacted by them as well, I think, on my site. Thanks for the quick review. So bottom line...worth a try?

[Michael Sampson]

Sure Tris ... bottom line ... try it out. There isn't an accepted standard in the marketplace for this stuff yet, so everything new is interesting in its own right.