That was the subhead of our press release we sent out this morning. For years, our customers have described Central Desktop as the most powerful  "SharePoint Alternative" on the market.   We've worked hard to offer small and medium-sized businesses with features that are comparable or better than Microsoft SharePoint, but without the IT hassle that comes with complex or traditional software. 

From our inception five years ago, we have been dedicated to building the most comprehensive collaboration platform for business. 

It was our customers who first called us the best SharePoint Alternative - and today, we continue to build on that reputation with the announcement of our newest product:  Central Desktop for Office, a hand and glove integration between Central Desktop and MS Office. 

Powered by OffiSync technology, Central Desktop for Office will radically improve the way you and your team collaborate by allowing multiple users to simultaneously edit any Word, Excel and PowerPoint document in real time, merging the changes into one version, all from the comfort of your desktop. To see this feature in action, check out this video
Co-authoring is an ideal feature for discussing and making changes to financial documents, budgets and forecasts; collaborating on the creation of a PowerPoint presentation or group-editing and brainstorming in a Word document.  Most online spreadsheets are still not powerful enough to handle "real business financials" and so many users revert to Excel to "do their real work."  Today, with Central Desktop for Office, users can have the collaborative power of group-editing and co-authoring  in a native Microsoft Office environment - using the tools they are already comfortable with - and without the high cost of upgrading to Office / SharePoint 2010.

Microsoft has been touting its "co-authoring" functionality as an incentive for users to upgrade to Office and SharePoint 2010. But for businesses who can't afford or choose not to upgrade to Office/SharePoint 2010, Central Desktop for Office will provide co-authoring for Office 2003, 2007 and 2010.  (At the time of this writing, Office/SharePoint 2010 does not support co-authoring capabilities for Excel spreadsheets nor is co-authoring available with prior versions of Microsoft Office).

Central Desktop for Office truly bridges the gap between Microsoft Office and the cloud - enabling users to open, save and collaboratively author and edit files from any location.

We firmly believe that Central Desktop for Office graduates us from "SharePoint Alternative" to "SharePoint Killer."
For more information, visit http://www.centraldesktop.com/office.

Online Collaboration Software - Hot Companies Finalist

We don't like to brag but we're proud to announce today that Central Desktop has been named a 2010 Hot Companies finalist by Network Products Guide! The award recognizes technology companies of all sizes and around the world so this is a huge honor for us as an online collaboration software. We were judged based on Network Products Guide's "4Ps" selection criteria - Products, People, Performance and Potential - and well as assessed for other aspects of our business including experience, revenue-growth model and expansion strategies.

We actually already consider ourselves to be pretty "hot" but it's always great to receive this type of industry recognition. It's validation that we're on the right track and renews our dedication to providing the best possible product and service to our customers.  

The 2010 Hot Companies winners will be announced at the Technosium 2010 Presentations and Dinner in San Francisco on March 18 so keep your fingers crossed for us!

It's the second week of 2010 and I'm still buzzing from last year.  Not from the alcohol (anymore) but from the stellar fourth quarter our company just had!  We finished the quarter strong and I'm proud to state that year-over-year, our total company annual sales grew by more than 44% during "The Great Recession of 2009"  (read more in our press release here). 

Since its common for start-ups to state hypergrowth statistics I'll share some of our own stats as well:

• Year over Year Enterprise Sales Bookings increased by more than 1500%
• Q4 2009 Enterprise Sales compared to Q4 2008 Enterprise Sales increased by more than 600%
• Q4 2009 Total Enterprise Customer Counts increased by more than 1000% compared to Q4 2008

In short, our mid-market ("Enterprise") business grew dramatically in 2009 and we foresee even more percentage growth in 2010 in this sector - transitioning firmly from an early stage startup into an established mid-stage startup company.

As a visual retrospective, I also wanted to share a trend graph of the last two years that captures our top line sales growth (gross bookings). 


This graph shows the upward trend that our company has realized for the past 8 quarters (as a private company, we do not release our revenue numbers).  As you can see, Q1 of 2009 yielded a dip that coincides perfectly with the first quarter following the financial crisis.  Looking back at Q1 2009, growth was inhibited by a slowdown in the number of new customers signing up with Central Desktop.  

I recall speaking with many of our customers and prospects during that first quarter and hearing their anxiety about the economy and the future.  Small business customers were fully extended with regards to their credit lines and said that many of their larger vendors and customers were holding out on payments terms for months - which severely impacted their cash flow and ability to stay alive.  As a result, some customers downgraded or disappeared altogether.

Fortunately, the nature of our economical model (SaaS subscriptions) significantly reduced the impact that canceling customers had on our business.  No single customer represents more than 1% of our total annual revenues, yielding a far more resilient business model than traditional enterprise software.

(There is also some seasonality that the graph implies, as Q4 has historically always been our best quarter and there is a small deflationary period that occurs after Q4.  I did look back at prior years to look for other trends, but did not notice a pull back in prior Q1s like what occurred Q1 of 2009....clearly pointing to the impact of the financial crisis.)  

Let's be honest - 2009 was a tough year for everyone, including for us at Central Desktop.  We've had to battle the economy, we teethed through company growing pains (we've grown from a team of 6 to 30+ over the last 18 months) and fought to remain competitive in a very competitive marketplace.  

But, in spite of the economic headwinds we grew and below is a short list of key milestones and company events that we achieved during 2009:

- 50%+ Employee Growth
- Hundreds of New Enterprise customers
- Industry recognition as a leading mid-market SaaS collaboration platform by both Forrester Research and Gartner
- Central Desktop named one of "2010's 10 Companies to Watch"
- Named one of InformationWeek's Startup 50
- Released the Outlook Plugin to put us closer to par with SharePoint (Central Desktop as a *real* SharePoint Alternative)
- Status Updates / Twitter-like functionality built into Central Desktop
- 3rd party iPhone App available
- Extended and improved global performance via Akamai's Content Delivery Network
- Partnered with Zoho for their online spreadsheet technology
- WebDAV went into beta
- Central Desktop availability in the Intuit App Center
- Total System Availability for the YEAR (Annual Uptime) greater than 99.9+%
(This is something we'll expand on in a later blog post)

Overall, 2009 was a good year.  Sure, our goals were higher and our expectations are always that we should have done more - but we should also be proud of what we accomplished during "The Great Recession of 2009."

Ultimately, our success is completely driven by you, our customers.  I want to thank you for your loyalty to Central Desktop.  Thank you for choosing Central Desktop and thank you for staying with us during 2009.  2010 is full of promise as we continue to drive hard at providing the best collaboration software solution on the market.

OptionEase

Keeping up with audit and compliance issues is a headache for most companies. From a time/bandwidth perspective, tracking in a variety of detailed and cumbersome spreadsheets is simply not an alternative for many emerging growth CFO's, and we are no exception.  Keeping up with the changing standards and audit guidelines in the current market is becoming increasingly difficult as well.  Using an Excel spreadsheet clearly wasn't an option as our Company continued to scale.  We quickly realized we needed a software application to help us manage our equity compliance, which is why we announced today that we're using OptionEase.

OptionEase provides on-demand SaaS applications for fair-market-value accounting and compliance. Using their solutions, we were able to streamline equity administration and ensure ongoing compliance, saving us valuable time and money.  In addition, going into our first year audit, I had peace of mind knowing that when auditors are looking at our option administration, getting them to a comfort level with our stock option accounting would be greatly facilitated by a robust tool like OptionEase.

As a Saas Company ourselves, we see the benefit of incorporating tools such as OptionEase as an extension of our business.  Seeing that the software industry as a whole is migrating from license/enterprise-based model to a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) model, it was a natural conversion for us and we're glad we did it.

To Access All of Central Desktop's latest Press Releases, Check out our new Press Room.

myOneLogin Single Sign-On in the Cloud Now Available

Juggling too many usernames and passwords can create mayhem when you're trying to work on all of them at one point or another throughout the day. So today we announced a partnership with Internet identity services provider, TriCipher. As an integrated partner, Central Desktop is now a supported Web application on TriCipher's myOneLogin secure single sign-on service.  

At Central Desktop we also realize putting confidential information online might make people a little uneasy.  However, with myOneLogin, business users can sign in and from a single portal, securely log in to Central Desktop plus other Web applications (over 2,000 and growing) that are supported on myOneLogin.  Using myOneLogin's service gives you a painless way to incorporate single sign-on in the cloud for your business especially now that Central Desktop is a partner.

myOneLogin and Central Desktop Success-

Tandem Business Specialists is a great example of a company using both Central Desktop and myOneLogin. They're a financial services consulting firm so security is particularly critical for them, but by accessing Central Desktop through myOneLogin's secure service, they can rest easy that their client information is secure. For more information on how Tandem Business Specialists uses myOneLogin and Central Desktop, check out this case study.


Check out our other Partner Press Releases:

Announcing Zoho as Online Spreadsheet Partner

New Duct Tape Marketing Collaboration Solution Powered by Central Desktop Available Now

Central Desktop's Social Technology Platform Joins the Intuit App Center

Duct Tape Marketing Collaboration Solution

We're proud to announce today that the new Duct Tape Marketing Collaboration Solution powered by Central Desktop is now available. We partnered with John Jantsch's Duct Tape Marketing to bring this customized version of Central Desktop to you.  This version of Central Desktop will sport the Duct Tape Marketing look and feel, a Duct Tape Marketing Resource Workspace and a free digital version of Duct Tape Marketing's Referral Flood book.  It's designed specifically for small business owners who use Duct Tape's marketing techniques and strategies and features content from John Jantsch.  

Last week, we attended the Duct Tape Marketing Coaches Gathering in Boulder, CO where Isaac Garcia had a chance to introduce the attendees to the benefits of collaboration and the new customized version of Duct Tape Collaboration Solution.

Duct Tape Marketing's John Jantsch

For those of you who aren't familiar with John Jantsch, he's a veteran marketing coach, small business expert and author of Duct Tape Marketing: The World's Most Practical Small Business Marketing Guide. Most likely you have come across an article by John if you are reading Entrepreneur Magazine or the American Express OPEN Forum. He has also presented marketing workshops from the Small Business Administration to the American Marketing Association.   

For more information about the Duct Tape Marketing Collaboration Solution, click here.

 

Central Desktop Joins the Intuit App Center

Today we announced that Central Desktop is now available at the Intuit App Center, which is a new feature in QuickBooks Pro and Premier 2010. Through the Intuit App Center, small businesses will be able to access third-party Web applications that can help their businesses grow, reduce costs and manage workflow. 

Small Business Solutions

We were extremely excited to be included in the Intuit App Center and associated with one of the most trusted brands for small businesses. This partnership was particularly important to us because it's a way to reach more small business owners to let them know that collaboration software solutions don't have to be costly and difficult to maintain. We're happy to be able to extend the business process improvements of using Central Desktop to Intuit's 4 million small business customers. 

For more information about this announcement, click here.

Board of Directors - Central Desktop

Today I'm proud to announce that John Greathouse has joined our Board of Directors at Central Desktop. 

John is a highly successful and versatile entrepreneur and advisor that has lived and worked in the trenches of many successful companies (Citrix Online (CTXS), Computer Motion (RBOT) and CallWave (CALL) just to name a few).  His experience goes far beyond the start-up stage and reaches deep into the expansion and growth stages of companies and ends with acquisition and IPO experience.

In short, John's experience spans companies from the cradle to "the grave" - so to speak - and epitomizes what I like to think of as the CFO 2.0 profile.  Over the years, in addition to overseeing Sales and Business Development, John spearheaded transactions which generated more than $350 million of shareholder value, including Computer Motion's initial public offering and the sale of Expertcity to Citrix for over $230M.

Arnulf and I came to know John a few years ago after being introduced through a mutual friend who is also a highly successful founder of a software company in Santa Barbara.  While John has been a friend and resource to us for several years now, him joining our board rings a strong endorsement to our company, our product and our happy customers.

We are very excited to have him on our Board and look forward to working with him even closer over the coming years.

Luckily for the rest of you, John not only shares his technology and entrepreneur experience with us - but also teaches New Venture Creation and Entrepreneurial Leadership at University of California Santa Barbara and writes a fantastic blog under the pseudonym of Uncle Saul where he doles out meaningful advice to startup entrepreneurs.  You can read the writings of Uncle Saul at http://www.infoChachkie.com.  As if it wasn't enough, John is also a CPA and holds an M.B.A. from the Wharton School.

Share this blog post: http://budurl.com/greathouse

Status Updates Now in Central Desktop

Today, we officially launched and released a fully integrated micro-blogging tool into the Central Desktop platform.  While the feature is influenced by the functionality of Twitter and Micro-Blogging, we are calling and describing the feature "Central Desktop Status Updates."

The Status Update feature accommodates our customers desire to integrate Twitter-like functions into their day-to-day activities, but for business, and more secure, and within Central Desktop.  Business-centric Status Updates brings a new dynamic to how people communicate within a collaborative environment.

Instead of a binary update that you would see in Recent Activity Log that "Isaac Uploaded a File" or "Isaac  Completed a Task", Status Updates allows the user to inject meaning and context into their activities.

For example, I can post an update to Central Desktop that "I'm giving a briefing to Rob Koplowitz from Forrester Research" or that "Isaac is trying to make a PHP class behave like an array."

These statements provide context to the activities that I'm working on - far more context and meaning than a binary statement such as "Conference Call with Forrester" or "Checked-In File."

An added value feature that we also included into Central Desktop Status Updates is the ability to also update Twitter and Facebook with your status as well!  This accommodates repetition and allows Central Desktop users to punch through the corporate firewall (in this case, Central Desktop) and connect with the outside world (in this case, Twitter and Facebook). 

[No word on LinkedIn integration yet. We have not received very good support from LinkedIn to tap into their API.  Someone tell LinkedIn to respond to our requests as our customers (and their customers) want our apps to talk together.]

As part of Central Desktop Status Updates, you can post an update via SMS text directly into Central Desktop as well!

In case you are wondering why we've "jumped on the 'Twitter-Bandwagon', let me summarize:

1. Our customers want it.
   
   
2. From a business collaboration perspective, micro-blogging is only relevant to business users in a business context - and does not belong in the public domain or in a separate application.
   
   
3. Central Desktop's Pure SaaS Social Technology Platform is about the People and our customers wanted to provide a secure way for their employees and users to leverage "Twitter-like" functionality for the purpose of business.
   
   
4. Central Desktop Status Updates bring micro-conversations "into the firewall" in a protected environment instead of in the public domain.
   
   
5. Central Desktop Status Updates eliminates the need to toggle between networks to post updates to multiple networks (Twitter, Facebook, more to come).

I'll be talking more about this topic later this week in Boston at Enterprise 2.0 (I'll be on a Panel titled, "How Twitter Changes Everything."  I'll share more details about the thought process of why we integrated Status Updates and how we were influenced by the "Twitter-Wave."

Again, this is about the people and empowering them to communicate more...too collaborate more.  As I wrote in a previous post last week about Business Adaptation, business is becoming people-centric rather than technology-centric.  Central Desktop Status Updates enables and empowers users to communicate in real-time and interact in new, relevant, contextual ways, for business. 

Global Collaboration with Central Desktop

We have recently partnered with Akamai to meet the increase in global demand for our SaaS-based social technology platform. Central Desktop now leverages the Akamai Content Delivery Network of 45,000+ servers distributed throughout the world.  

Geographically dispersed teams have always been a large part of our customer base, but with increasing demand it was apparent that we needed to optimize the user experience internationally. Investing in Akamai allows us to confidently scale and service any business regardless of size or geographic distribution.

International users, remote teams, & global workgroups should see at least a 30% increase in the speed of Central Desktop load times. We expect performance increases for Europe, Middle East, Africa and Asia north of 40% when using Central Desktop. North American customers could expect performance boosts in the 10-20% range.

>>Read the Press Release Here

Central Desktop's Rising Success

Around the world and across the nation, Q4 of 2008 was a tough quarter for everyone.  The month of October was a haze - filled with panic and fear with no end in sight.  November wasn't much better, but at least the stock market free fall ended before the Thanksgiving holiday.  

At Central Desktop it was no different than at most companies:  we were concerned about our 401ks, our customers, our families, our jobs and our future.  But, after the sick feeling abated, we looked around and realized that we made it through the trough of the slump.  Don't get me wrong, we know that 2009 is going to be a tough year and we know that that we can't be sure of an economic turn around anytime soon - the daily news, our spouses, our friends and even our investors are all quick to remind us of the difficulties ahead of us (rightfully so).

But overall, we are positive about our future, mainly, because in spite of the gloom - and in spite of the pain that we experienced and witnessed all around us - that there was a beacon of light; a glimmer of hope.  The truth and facts are that we had a record November and December and a record fourth quarter!

Yesterday, we issued a press release spotlighting our recent success - not to rub it in anyone's face - but to share some good news in a blogosphere filled with dearth, gloom and doom.  

In the worst quarter of the new millennium, Central Desktop not only grew in revenue, employees and customers - but we also released a new product (Central Desktop Enterprise Edition) and added 10 mid-market customers in December alone, including IBI Group, a multi-disciplinary consulting firm providing a range of services focusing on the physical development of cities, and Workday, Inc., the leader in on-demand enterprise solutions for human resources and business management.

I wanted to make sure that we issued the release to also assure our customers that Central Desktop is doing very well, growing and trustworthy in these tough economic times. I also wanted the release to remind our employees of the great job they've been doing during these times and to let them know that they should be proud of their hard work.

You can read the entire release here; but I wanted to highlight some key quotes:

"...tripled its staff and reached over 250,000 users in 2008, a 150 percent increase in both user count and revenue."

"Our Fortune 500 customers have multi-phased, multi-geographic implementation projects with a multitude of stake holders, and we need to get each implementation up and running fast," said Jeff Langenfeld, Delivery Assurance Group, Workday. "We are 100 percent SaaS, so even when our customers want to work with us on an on-premise platform, we ask that they collaborate with us via Central Desktop because we understand that SaaS is so much easier to use, manage and get-up-and running. No one has the time or resources for on-premise solutions in today's environment."

"Businesses, non-profits and government agencies are all being forced to reevaluate and reduce IT costs wherever possible in today's weak economy," said Mark Levitt, VP for Collaboration and Enterprise 2.0 Strategies, IDC. "Recognizing that work must still get done, organizations are turning to SaaS, particularly for collaboration solutions that can be deployed with minimal internal IT resources and paid for out of operating expense budgets."

Even through difficult economic times, Central Desktop is continuing to grow as a SaaS leader in the social technology market.  We know that 2009 will remain to be a difficult year for everyone, including us; but we are confident that we will continue to succeed and make thousands of customers happy over the course of 2009 as well.

So far, January is shaping up to be another stellar month building on our Q4 momentum - propelling us forward to another record year.  We are carrying the momentum into February with new product features that many of you will enjoy very much.  Stay tuned and learn more here. 

Thank you all for your support, your business and your trust.

Update:  Phil Wainwright has written an entire post about SaaS surging in the downturn. It is good to read about other companies like Xactly and Marketo doing well in these times as well.

Affiliate Program for Central Desktop

We've revamped our affiliate program to make it one of the best affiliate programs on the web:

• Uncapped income potential
• 100% CPA payout on the 1st month's subscription cost ($25-$499+)
• On-going residual commissions for life - 10% / month
  
• Your own landing page - You can personalize. See my sign-up page example.
  
• Super easy-to-use promotional materials:
• Add email addresses to the form on the 'Affiliate Program' tab to send emails to friends or business colleagues
  
• Add links or banners to your website, email signature, blog, or social network profiles (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.)
• Pull quotes, screen shots, or other rich content to support your opinions on why people should use Central Desktop from our Customer Network.
• Commissions are logged in real-time as soon as anyone signs up for a paying account through your links
  

Here is the video on how to get started:

And another cool video Tia, our Social Media expert put together about it:

All our current customers count as instant affiliates:

• Your link is: http://signup.centraldesktop.com/(your username)
• Go to the "Affiliate Program" tab from the "Account >> My Account" drop down menu in Central Desktop to find out more
• You can start referring friends & business colleagues immediately - no fancy set-up is needed

If you are not a current Central Desktop customer, go here to get started.

And please feel free to email me at affiliates(at)centraldesktop(dot)com, if you have any questions.

PASADENA, Calif., October 9, 2008 -- Central Desktop, Inc. would like to support organizations social good work by granting one-year subscriptions to it's web-based social technology and project collaboration platform to the top three (3) organizations who submit stories at http://www.centraldesktop.com/socialgood. Central Desktop is the pure web-based social technology platform for next-generation teams to interact, share and manage their daily work activities from anywhere at anytime.

"Our social technology platform was used by the Barack Obama Presidential Primary Campaign team to drive voters to the polls in California and Texas, and it's currently helping hundreds of non-profits, faith-based organizations and academic institutions around the world," said Isaac Garcia, CEO and Founder, Central Desktop, Inc. "We love the idea of organizations using social technology to make the world a better place to work and live."

To be considered for Central Desktop's technology grant, (valued at up to $2,988), describe how the entrants team or organization would benefit from leveraging Central Desktop's social technology to forward it's social good objectives via Central Desktop's Social Good portal @ http://www.centraldesktop.com/social.

Whether the organization connects donors to needy families, supports sustainable technology, eco-friendly living, alternative energy, organizes community outreach events or raises funds for your child's school -- Central Desktop wants to help.  All grant submissions must be received no later than 12:00 pm, November 10th, 2008.
On November 18th, 2008, three grants of one-year company plan subscriptions of Central Desktop will be awarded to the top three teams among all eligible entries. Winners will be contacted via email and announced on November 18th, 2008. Entrants are also encouraged to submit a 30-second YouTube video in addition to a written entry.

About Central Desktop
Central Desktop delivers a pure web-based social technology platform for progressive business teams to interact, share and manage their daily work activities from anywhere at anytime. Built collaboratively over the last three years with direct feedback from its users, the Central Desktop platform provides enterprise-grade functionality without enterprise solution resource requirements. Used by over 200,000 people worldwide, Central Desktop's customers represent next-generation organizations with geographically dispersed teams that are committed to using innovative web 2.0 tools for business success. 

Central Desktop serves organizations in technology, media, marketing & communications, professional services, architecture & design and many others. It's group project management platform consistently delivers a 30% increase in productivity while decreasing the total cost of doing business. Key Central Desktop customers include: The Barack Obama Presidential Campaign, iSoldit, Gymboree, NXTV, Chapters of the Project Management Institute and the California Office of HIPAA Compliance.

Founded in 2005, Central Desktop is a privately-held company located in Pasadena, California. For more information, visit www.centraldesktop.com.

###

Media Inquiries:
Sonya Prybutok
Inspire Communications
sonya@inspire-communications.com
415-812-9755

Grant Inquiries:
socialgood@centraldesktop-inc.com
www.centraldesktop.com/socialgood

Collaboration Platform Central Desktop Summer Release

First New Platform Extension Applications Include Time-Tracking and Support/Help-Desk Services

PASADENA, Calif., August 5, 2008 - Central Desktop, bringing business teams online for more than three (3) years with its award-winning communication and team collaboration platform, today announced its Summer Release which includes time-tracking, support/help-desk applications and a powerful new database API that allows teams to integrate other application data into the Central Desktop platform. Business users can finally manage all of their daily business activities from anywhere at anytime from a single Web location.  In addition to the database enhancements, the Summer release includes an extension of user profiles for creating custom, searchable fields and links to external profile data from social networks such as LinkedIn and Facebook. Today's announcement marks another step towards Central Desktop's vision to provide the most complete virtual team platform on the market for conducting daily business activities.

Central Desktop's Web 2.0 platform consistently delivers a 30% increase in team productivity while decreasing the total cost of doing business. "Having an application that makes connecting to content as easy as connecting to people is a real step forward. No longer do you have to bring up multiple applications to access corporate data and share it with one or more people within a common context like Central Desktop," noted David Coleman, Founder and Managing Director of Collaborative Strategies and author of the new Collaboration 2.0 book. "It's the ease of  usability and the ability to  connect to a wide number of data sources that we're seeing in Central Desktop's release that is driving the rapid adoption of Collaboration 2.0 applications forward."

Central Desktop continues to deliver more web based team collaboration functionality and robustness than Google Apps and without the resources required to configure Sharepoint. "We're continually looking for ways to improve how we service and support small to mid-sized businesses," said Isaac Garcia, CEO, Central Desktop. "The Web application market is exploding, and though we already have the majority of online tools for collaborating on work as a part of the Central Desktop platform, users in a variety of industries need additional support to track-time, manage service and support, as well as bring together other industry specific functions into their daily business communications and collaboration efforts," said Isaac Garcia, CEO and Co-Founder, Central Desktop. "We're purpose-built for SMBs who often don't receive the level of service and support they require from larger software vendors, it's our number one priority to quickly develop our platform to meet our customer's requirements as they migrate their daily business activities online."

Used by hundreds of thousands of people worldwide, Central Desktop's customers represent teams in technology, media, marketing & communications, professional services, architecture & design and others with geographically dispersed team members.

More on the Central Desktop Summer Release

Database API: The new database API is ideal for creating custom workflow between Central Desktop and third party software applications. In addition, it allows users to create custom mini-applications within Central Desktop Workspaces. The Database API allows users to:

• Integrate third-party data into Central Desktop workspace databases
• Auto-update Central Desktop Databases from integrated 3rd party applications
• Query and export custom data sets from Central Desktop Databases
• Auto-import custom data sets into Central Desktop Database

Time-tracking Application: The new time tracking application is ideal for professional services, consultants, developers, designers, project resource management and other 'time-measured' tasks. Time tracking allows users to:

• Track the amount of time spent on a specific task
• Create timesheets and reports by user, by project and by date-span
• Capture custom data into user-defined fields, so that users can track more than just time 
• Export timesheets and reports into 3rd party billing applications

Help-Desk Application: The new help-desk application is ideal for in-house help desks, client services, internal software support teams, vendor management and minor bug-tracking. It eliminates the need for Central Desktop customers to subscribe to third-party help-desk services to reduce subscription costs and increase efficiencies. The help desk application allows users to:

• Track support desk tickets
• Open and close help desk incidents
• Report on the number of open and closed help desk incidents

Visit the Central Desktop blog for more details at http://cdblog.centraldesktop.com/.

About Central Desktop
Central Desktop brings business teams online. With its award-winning communication and team collaboration platform teams can now manage their daily business activities from anywhere at anytime. Used by hundreds of thousands of people worldwide, Central Desktop customers represent teams in technology, media, marketing & communications, professional services, architecture & design and others with geographically dispersed team members. Its Web 2.0 platform consistently delivers a 30% increase in productivity while decreasing the total cost of doing business. Key Central Desktop customers include The Barack Obama Presidential Campaign, iSoldit, Gymboree, NXTV, Chapters of the Project Management Institute and the California Office of HIPAA Implementation. Founded in 2005, Central Desktop is a privately-held company located in Pasadena, California. For more information, visit www.centraldesktop.com.

© Central Desktop 2008. All rights reserved. Central Desktop and the Central Desktop logo are all registered trademarks of Central Desktop. All other trademarks and registered trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

Videos of Central Desktop's Summer Release:

• Custom Profile Fields
• Time Tracking

Press Inquiries:
Sonya Prybutok
Inspire Communications
sonya@inspire-communications.com
415-812-9755

Startup of the Week

Central Desktop is the Startup of the Week over at InformationWeek Magazine.

Read the full profile by Andrew Conry-Murray here.

Salesforce.com customers can now deploy rich extranets to collaborate with customers and partners

PASADENA, Calif., - December 18, 2006 - Central Desktop, the award winning project collaboration software company, today announced their integration with Salesforce is now available on the AppExchange. With Central Desktop for AppExchange, Salesforce users can create personalized customer extranets and partner portals. Built using the Apex on-demand platform, Central Desktop is immediately available for test drive, trial and deployment on the AppExchange directory at http://www.salesforce.com/appexchange.

Central Desktop brings wiki technology to salesforce.com customers in a structured, permission-based environment that is easily adaptable to a company's specific business needs. Central Desktop for AppExchange provides a professional user-experience when collaborating with customers and partners by allowing Salesforce users to invite their customers into a private, invitation-only extranet that can be entirely customized to the company's corporate themes and colors.

Voted "Best of the Web" for collaboration tools by BusinessWeek magazine, Central Desktop for AppExchange is ideal for managing projects, deploying professional services, organizing complex sales and business development deals or simply collaborating with customers outside the firewall. Rather than juggling multiple tools to collaborate with customers, Central Desktop for AppExchange provides a seamless and customizable experience for Salesforce users to track projects and communicate with both customers and partners.

"With the new Central Desktop integration, salesforce.com customers now have a powerful tool to easily collaborate with customers and partners in a private and secure environment," said Isaac Garcia, CEO of Central Desktop. "Rather than emailing files, documents and to-do lists back and forth between employees and customers, Central Desktop allows companies to track projects, files and discussions in a secure extranet environment that is both easy to use and professional in appearance."

"Industry-leading partners such as Central Desktop are delivering solutions on the AppExchange that bring the benefits of on demand to all parts of the enterprise," said Matt Holleran, vice president, AppExchange partners, salesforce.com. "Customers no longer have to choose between on demand and on-premise applications for their enterprise - they can now use the AppExchange to choose from hundreds of on-demand applications to address their specific business requirements."

Key Features of Central Desktop for AppExchange
• Professional-looking customer facing extranets
• Delivered 100 percent on demand
• Wiki-based environment
• Completely customizable
• Group calendars for projects and coordination
• Version track files and documents
• Searchable discussion threads
• Secure environment: 256 bit SSL encryption
• Enterprise-grade full-text search within documents and files

Apex and the AppExchange
Apex, the world's first on-demand platform, provides unprecedented ease of customization and integration enabling a whole new generation of on-demand applications that go beyond CRM. All Apex components and applications can be easily shared, exchanged and installed with a few simple clicks via salesforce.com's AppExchange directory, enabling all the innovation that Apex unleashes to benefit the entire on-demand community.

Central Desktop for AppExchange is one of more than 400 applications that are now available on salesforce.com's AppExchange, the world's first on-demand application directory, found at http://www.salesforce.com/appexchange.

The Apex platform, formerly known as the AppExchange platform, is available today. As previously announced, the next release of the Apex platform is currently scheduled to be available in conjunction with the release of Winter 07, and the Apex programming language is currently scheduled to be available during the first half of 2007.

About Central Desktop
Central Desktop, a pioneer in the on-demand project collaboration market, provides affordable and easy to use collaboration tools to business teams in small and medium sized businesses. Used by more than 20,000 teams and individuals around the world, Central Desktop is an alternative to complex, traditional groupware products such as Microsoft SharePoint and Lotus Notes. Central Desktop clients include groups within Fortune 500 companies, academia, government agencies, manufacturing firms, and software development firms around the globe. Founded in early 2005, Central Desktop is headquartered in Pasadena, California. For more information, visit www.centraldesktop.com.

© Central Desktop. All rights reserved. Central Desktop and the Central Desktop logo are all registered trademarks of Central Desktop. All other trademarks and registered trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

Media Contact:
Barbara Llarena
Central Desktop
510.430.1400 office
510.693.0933 mobile
barbara@centraldesktop-inc.com

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It looks like our article yesterday (actually probably as a result of Erick Schonfeld's article at Next Net Blog) made Google blink.

Based on the thoroughness of the statement and the use of the word "precedent" in the second sentence, it appears that the Google PR team huddled with the legal team and issued a statement on the Inside AdWords Blog (the text of the statement is below):

"Being rather proud of AdWords as a means to effectively advertise one's products or services, it seems natural to use it ourselves. Since it's a common practice across the industry for companies to promote their own products and services through their own web presence, there is much precedent to do this.

It's important to note, however, that our ads are created and managed under the exact same guidelines, principles, practices and algorithms as the ads of any other advertiser. Likewise, we use the very same tools and account interface.

As does any advertiser, we aim to give our campaigns a budget which is in line with their value to us in terms of the increased traffic we might see. We actively monitor and manage the success of our ads by adjusting ad copy, keywords, bids, and so forth in the same way any advertiser who is concerned with their account performance would.

That said, there are no special buttons to push or levers to pull that give our internal account managers special treatment or leverage. Quality Score is automatically evaluated in the same way for our keywords as it is for any advertiser's keywords. Likewise, the potential to show up in the top spots above the search results is the same for Google's ads as it is for any other. We rely on the AdWords system to let relevancy and usefulness to our users be the driving force behind our ad placement. As such, we do not intentionally try to secure a top position. In fact, we generally aim for a more 'conservative' position.

As was already mentioned, there are no algorithm changes to 'smooth the way' for Google's ads -- and the accounts of 'competing' advertisers (should there be any for particular keywords or Ad Groups) are never referenced in any way.

We're quite proud of the advertising platform we've built and it simply makes sense for us to use it. At the same time, the trust of both our users and our advertisers is of paramount importance. We honor that responsibility, and work hard to earn and keep that trust."

Good. I'm very pleased that Google said something.

Based on the statement, we have no choice but to believe that Google is "paying" and "competing" with "the rest of us" when they are bidding on AdWords for their own products. Given Google's lack of financial transparency with the public markets I doubt we'll ever learn or hear anything more about this topic.

Too bad we can't respond and comment on their blog, though. So much for dialogue.

Still Doesn't *Feel* Right

Personally, I don't know what to believe. While I don't put unethical behavior past Google's capabilities (just as any business is capable of engaging in unethical acts) I do believe that blatant violations would be severely detrimental to its reputation and thus not in their best interest to do.

But, in spite of their public statement, it still doesn't sit well with me. It's not that I don't believe them (sort of) but more about that it's just a statement - and we (including you) don't really have any way of proving the validity and truth of their statements (and probably never will). As previously stated, Google's lack of transparency leaves the door open to conspiracy theories and rumours.

Noteworthy Comments

All of that being said, I'd like to highlight some of the more interesting comments that bubbled up out of yesterday's brew (in spite of the adamant and vehement Pro-Google Slashdot crowd that dominated the conversation)

from Erick Schonfeld:

"Google prides itself on creating a level playing field where the best search results (and the best ads) naturally rise to the top. Only Google knows exactly how its ranking algorithm works, which gives it an advantage (fair or unfair) over everybody else in getting its own products to come up to the top of either the sponsored or natural search results. After all, its employees should be the best search-engine optimizers of all."

And on the related topic of page rank a few blog comments from "JG" stood out:

"I remember when Google Scholar was release. The day after it came out, I went to Google and typed just one word: "scholar". Guess which page came up first, in the organic ranking? Yup.. Google Scholar. I frankly find that quite unbelievable. Google was somehow able to recompute all the pageRank for their new Scholar service in one day, and also that it had acquired enough links to somehow be more relevant than any other page about scholars, scholarships (such as the Rhodes scholars), or other scholarly activity. It just seems highly dubious to me."

Then "Webmaster X" yawns and says,

"Yawn. Google already has backlinks out the yin yang. When you have that many links pointing to you it only takes a short time to get indexed. Them showing up #1 for ANYTHING they create does not point to anything fishy."

Like a good commenter, "JG" responded with more interesting and specific data:

"Webmaster X: Maybe. Maybe.

But type in "maps". Google is again first. Ahead of Mapquest. Ahead of Yahoo maps. Yahoo also has backlinks out the ying yang. So why is it third? And mapquest has been around forever.. I'm sure there are more links to mapquest.com than to the maps.google.com URL, simply because the millions of web pages that linked their directions to Mapquest from 1996 to 2004 didn't all rush out and change all their links to Google maps in February of 2005 (when it was released), even if Google's is a better product.

Next, try "mail". Despite the fact that Yahoo mail has been around forever, and has all sorts of links, and that Hotmail has also been around forever, Gmail still manages to come up first.

And the most interesting thing about this particular keyword? The word "mail" by itself doesn't even appear on the gmail.google.com page! The words gmail, webmail, and email appear. But not "mail". At least on the Yahoo page, the word "mail" does indeed appear. Yet Google still manages to rank ahead of Yahoo.

Finally, try "answers". Yes, answers.google.com comes up second, rather than first. But answers.yahoo.com comes in third! Is the Google Answers site really getting that many more links than Yahoo's? Especially in light of the fact that Google recently decided to kill it, because almost no one was using it, while Yahoo's usage (and therefore also linkage, no doubt) are skyrocketing?

I may still be wrong. But you are too quick to dismiss this with your "Google has a lot of links" argument. Yahoo also has a lot of links. So why does its competing services almost always rank behind Google's, in the organic rankings?"

JG's comments are noteworthy and justifies all of us test this theory the day Google makes its next product announcement. There very well might be logical explanations to this phenomenon, as "Webmaster X" suggests, but the truth of the matter is that we'll never know.

In retrospect, it seems that the underlying issue here is Google's lack of transparency which is a recurring theme in how it runs its business. And, before the esoteric tongue-lashings take me to task, "Yes, Google has every right to run its business anyway it pleases - transparently, or not."

Update: So how much *does* Google pay for its own AdWords?
Starup Squad has some estimates - hold on to your hats - it's a lot. Woah.

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Tags: adwords, Central Desktop, Google

In the March Issue of Security Management Magazine, Peter Piazza writes about the security and infrastructure concerns in the Web 2.0 world.

In the article titled Riding the Web 2.0 Wave, Peter discusses security and infrastructure perspectives from Isaac Garcia of Central Desktop along with Jason Fried of Basecamp and Jen Mazzon of Writely.

SoCalTech.com Interview

On Wednesday, March 1, 2006 Benjamin Kuo from from SoCalTech.com interviewed Isaac Garcia, co-founder of Central Desktop.

"Isaac Garcia is CEO and co-founder of Central Desktop (www.centraldesktop.com), a Pasadena-based firm developing a web based collaboration tool, often lumped into the Web 2.0 category of companies. I thought it would be interesting to talk to Isaac about his company and their web-based application."

Read the entire interview at SoCalTech.com.

Central Desktop November Release

Its been a little over a month since our last 'major' code-release here at Central Desktop. This particular release was more focused on the layout and functionality of Workspaces, with a primary focus on the process and creation of new Workspaces.

Below is a quick review of what the new release contains:

Look and Feel

'Behind the scenes' changes as well as some changes to the look and feel of Central Desktop. We consolidated some menus and provided you with some additional customization functions. These changes were necessary as part of a larger vision and additional functionality that we will be providing at a later date.

Navigation Bar

A Navigation Bar was added to each Workspace. The Navigation Bar (page) provides a more natural feel to navigation and orientation throughout the Workspace. You have the option of placing the Navigation Bar on the Left or Right panels of the Workspace. You can also customize and edit the Navigation Bar just like any other page in a Workspace.

Templates

When creating a New Workspace you will be prompted with a few more questions and will have the option of selecting from pre-formatted Templates along with some sample content. This is meant to help you get started. Feel free to suggest other templates here. (You need to be logged in to Central Desktop for the link to work)

Colors : Style Templates

We've added the ability to select different color schemes as well as creating your own themes. You can also select from different Style Templates that effect the layout and appearance of the Workspace.

Dashboard And Daily Digests

All Tasks and Milestones across Workspaces are now consolidated on the Dashboard. We also improved the Workspace Digests to reflect a more visual and meaningful summary of what changed in each Workspace. These changes are reflected in the Email Digests for each Workspace too.

RSS Feeds (More Security)

We now support Secure RSS. All RSS Feeds have been modified to require Username and Password Authentication. All Workspace RSS Feeds have been modified to force HTTP Authentication. This means you will need to use a feed reader that supports this security method. Here are a few feed readers that support this: NewsGator, Newzcrawler, Feedreader. (We apologize in advance for all of you needing to reset your RSS Feeds.)

Workspace Backup / Export Feature

Under the SETTINGS TAB, we've added a BACKUP Function so that you can download a zipped file your Workspace Contents.

Lastly, we want to thank each and every one of you for your evaluation, adoption, feedback and patience with our product. We are working hard to develop the best collaboration software.

Central Desktop Full Release

In case you missed it, as of September 1st, Central Desktop is officially in Full Release.
We are open to the public and anyone can sign-up for Central Desktop, the top online collaboration software.

We are proud to introduce a new component with our Full Release that we are calling "Blocks."

"Blocks" are mini-apps that are used to build and construct pages in a Workspace. Blocks provide users with the ability to customize pages in a Workspace to reflect the specific needs and requirements of the project. Best of all, users don't need to know HTML, Javascript or ANY OTHER kind of CODE to use Blocks. Inserting Blocks into a page is just a few clicks! Once the Block is on the page, use Click and Drag to place it where you want it! NO CODE!

Stop relying on your web master or intranet administrator to customize a page for you. With Central Desktop, you have the power. Now, YOU can insert a Task List, a Milestone, an RSS feed, or start a Discussion Thread on any page in the Workspace.

Here is an example of what blocks look like: Blocks 1, Blocks 2

Blocks provide Central Desktop users with the ability to create fit-for-purpose Workspaces that meet the specific needs and requirements of the project they are working on.

Let us know what you think! There is still more to come!

Central Desktop Pre-Release Coming Soon!

Thank you all for your patience. We've been a bit slow about posting updates on the product and news here. Lets just say that we've been busy sorting and sifting through all of the feedback!

So far, the Alpha User feedback for Central Desktop has been very helpful, highly motivating and very welcomed. We encourage each of you to continue to provide us with feedback, suggestions and comments about our collaboration software and our services. To make it easier for you to submit feedback, next time you are logged into Central Desktop, notice that we've added a link in the upper right hand corder of the screen for "Suggestions."

Collaboration Software Pre-Release

We also want to take a moment to announce that we will be officially launching a 'Pre-Release' of our collaboration software on August 1st. This just means that we will be lifting the BETA Notification process and anyone will be able to sign-up for the services. Don't worry, pre-release doesn't mean we are charging for the services yet.

More details to come.........stay tuned.