The Holland Pavilion has been one of the highlights of recent Cloud Expo shows, including the most recent conference and exhibition in Santa Clara, CA.
A group of entrepreneurial companies in the cloud and social media spaces were present at the show last week, including a Utrecht-based startup called WorkVoices, described as “the enterprise social network leveraging your business.”
I spoke with company co-founder Marc Koetsier about the company and its vision…
Roger: When did you start WorkVoices and why? What need did you see?
Marc: We started WorkVoices in the beginning of 2009. Both founders were consultants at the time and saw the need for more interactive communication between employees, instead of a push-information edited intranet. We also noticed the need for a one-portal solution to combine all applications in use at a company into one main stream.
Roger: How does your product and service differ from Tibbr, for example, or from Salesforce’s Chatter?
Marc: It differs firstly because we link to Google Apps. A tight integration with Mail, Calender, etc., is on its way. We also provide WorkVoices as white label, so the styling can be completely set to the customers’ needs, and even custom functions can be built in. We also provide integrations to other applications, and can add more if needed.
Roger: How is it delivered? As SaaS, for example?
Marc: Yes, it is delivered as a SaaS solution, and thus readily available for users. We prefer the cloud, and have the flexibility there to help customers.
Roger: Do you view it as social media or collaboration software, or both?
Marc: I think it’s both, but mainly collaboration software. Social media is considered to be more on the Internet and Worldwide Web instead of on a company’s intranet. We do however provide integration with LinkedIn, Twitter, etc.
Roger: Is there a typical client for WorkVoices? Big company, for example? How many people would work in a typical WorkVoices environment?
Marc: There is no typical client for WorkVoices. We do business in almost all sectors, whether it be an engineering company, hospital , education, government, to non-profit organizations. We believe a minimum of about10 people should be in a network, to make it attractive to use. At the high end, we have quite successful networks of approximately 2,000 users, and this number is rising.
Roger: How did Cloud Expo work for you?
Marc: We enjoyed meeting a lot of people and made some friends – even, perhaps, a possible partner for us the US.