A couple of weeks ago, you might have noticed that eXpresso went dark for about two and a half days. The cause of our outage was directly connected to a rare but large scale outage Amazon’s ‘EC2′ and ‘EBS’ services suffered, making those services completely unavailable. And since eXpresso utilizes Amazon’s Web Services to host our application, Amazon’s problem became our problem. While it would be easy to point fingers and say, “It wasn’t our fault,” an honest assessment would suggest that is not entirely true, and shirking any responsibility would be doing a disservice to our customers.

First, let me explain a little of the jargon here. Amazon created an internal architecture to provide a highly available and quickly expandable system to host the various Amazon.com sites and sub-sites. While we are not privy to the inner workings of Amazon, we can only imagine someone looking over their work and saying,  “Wow, this is really neat. We should commercialize this!” Thus, Amazon moved into the world of virtual hosting. In a traditional hosting environment, you lease a physical box (or boxes) to run your stuff on. If you could walk around the hosting facility, you would be able to walk up to a server, and say, “That is my server.” In a virtual hosting environment, you typically share a physical server with a few other people. The physical server runs special software, so that it can offer up many smaller virtual hosts to clients. To the outside world, each of these virtual hosts is just like a real physical machine. There are many benefits to virtual environments, but there are also some drawbacks – as with everything, the benefits must be weighed with the risks to determine what makes sense. We’re not going to delve into that discussion here. Amazon’s EC2 service is their virtual server offering and using it enables companies (like eXpresso) to create and manage server farms very easily. Amazon’s EBS offering is a similar virtual product line, except for disk drives, rather than servers. Add EC2 and EBS together, and you have a basic server that you can use to host your application.

Earlier in the year, eXpresso realized that while our software would expand nicely to meet our projected customer needs, the server platform that we were employing would not. After a good amount of research and internal arguments and debate, we made the decision to migrate our infrastructure to Amazon’s EC2/EBS service. We moved it all into “the cloud” because, in our case, the benefits far outweighed the risks. It all worked wonderfully, right up until the moment Amazon crashed. Ultimately, we got too complacent. If you look at Amazon’s infrastructure, it is highly redundant at the component level. If a physical server fails, another just takes over, invisibly. The same with hard drives. If one fails, another just takes over. No action required. No need to worry about hardware failures, right? Wrong.  That’s the one thing we never had a plan for – what if the whole system fails? What if the piece of Amazon that we sit in falls over? In truth, we considered it, but dismissed it into the “never going to happen” category. That was our mistake, and one that bit us. Hard.

Ultimately, if you read Amazon’s post mortem (http://aws.amazon.com/message/65648/) you will see that this whole mess was caused by human error. It’s hard to plan for that, but it is reasonable to plan for the consequences of human error.  We have taken a good, hard look at our decision to use Amazon, and the cloud in general, to host our platform. We stand by that decision and believe it continues to be right for us and for our customers. However, we have already improved, and will continue to improve, our systems to ensure that should such an event happen in the future, it will have minimal impact or ideally no impact whatsoever on our users. The steps we are taking are based upon mirroring our whole system to another geographic location, as well as replacing and duplicating other aspects of our infrastructure to ensure complete redundancy.

We apologize to our customers who were affected by this event. We recognize that this time we got lucky with the bulk of the outage occurring on a weekend – a relatively quiet time for us,  but it was still totally unacceptable. We are determined that this kind of an outage will not happen again and are taking all the necessary steps to make it so.

In business, competition is always welcome. It makes companies, services, and solutions better than they would be on their own. For this, we can truly appreciate what EditGrid has accomplished in the past few years and all the hard work that went into building their brand. We look forward to what their development team will spin off in the future.

How is eXpresso different than EditGrid?

Our approaches, technologies, and services offer distinct differences, and we’ll mention a few here. But the best way to learn about it is to give it a try. Sign up is free, there’s no obligation, and you are not required to provide any billing information upfront.

#1. We both make it easier for people to create, edit, and share spreadsheets online in real-time, but eXpresso has chosen to support Microsoft® Excel®, the world-wide leader in spreadsheets. This enables you to share spreadsheets in full fidelity with virtually anyone because Excel is the most commonly used spreadsheet format for on the planet. Best of all, the people you share spreadsheets with will not need to learn an entirely new spreadsheet application. They can keep using Excel without missing a beat.

#2. Privacy and security are our top priorities! Since we focus on serving the business community, our clients have expressed their appreciation for how we manage to keep spreadsheets private and secure. Spreadsheets are never made public, and they can never be exposed through Web searches. For example, an EditGrid customer came to us specifically because their spreadsheet had unknowingly been made public and their private data published in public Web search results. That may have been an accident, but it would not have happened with eXpresso.

#3. We’ve got a fancy bit of technology called “Asymmetric Collaboration™” which is a geeky way of saying multiple people can edit the same spreadsheet at the same time, but they can experience the spreadsheet in totally unique ways. For example, Supplier A can edit columns D-H, and Supplier B can edit columns I-M – all without seeing each other’s respective columns. That means you can share one file with multiple people and customize where you want to allow each person to edit data and which parts of the file they are allowed to see. So instead of creating multiple files to consolidate later, you can create one file and all the data and access relationships are contained within one spreadsheet file. It may sound really techy, but it very easily elevates Excel collaboration to a whole new level for enterprises.

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(Plus, special offer for EditGrid customers)

BTW – What about your presentations and documents?

We are taking names for our upcoming private beta of PowerPoint and Word collaboration.  If that sounds interesting to you, please express your desire to participate. Learn more.

Do you tweet? Is hashtag part of your vocabulary? Are you constantly being followed or are you the one doing the following? Or, are you a Web extrovert and crave more friends?

Whatever the case, you can follow expressocorp on Twitter or connect with us on Facebook.  With Twitter, you’ll receive short updates from our team. We’ll tweet about things like development, product announcements, user tips, and more. It’s painless, and we promise not to overtweet.

On eXpresso’s Facebook page, we would like to see our users participate in open discussions, in addition to seeing announcements, event info, and more. Please check out our page and follow us by becoming a fan.

Thanks and let the dialogue begin!

Note: We’ll tend to use both of these services to communicate informal information that is better suited for dialogue in these forms of media. Please continue to get official news through the eXpresso website, our email newsletter, and our blog.

Tags: twitter, facebook, expresso, expressocorp, office, collaboration, new, announcements

Although I am a fan and user of all three of these great companies, eXpresso is the only solution available worldwide that can enable multiple people to edit shared Microsoft® Office documents online in real time. Period. In case you have any doubts, here’s the current state of the online Office document collaboration space as it relates to these three industry leaders.

Microsoft: Back in October 2008, Microsoft announced its plans to provide better Office collaboration online under the auspices of Office Live. By 2010 Microsoft hopes to have its “lightweight versions” of Office online. Users will be able to do some editing online, but more robust editing will be limited to the desktop. Other details of the release are still being determined. In contrast, eXpresso will be offering full-functionality online editing of Excel, Word, and PowerPoint plus tracking of the collaboration between users this quarter. Also, another way to think about our differences is that eXpresso does more than simply provide Office functionality online.  We focus on the collaboration layer that sits on top of these widely-used applications, stuff like cell tracking, limited editing, file history, and more.

Apple: At MacWorld yesterday, I watched one of my favorite companies, Apple, unveil a new service in beta called iWork.com.  It’s a new way for people to embed comments on iWork documents and pass these files back and forth online. It looks like a good service for Apple consumers, but it does not allow mutual Web-based editing of shared documents like eXpresso does.  iWork.com will be great for users of Apple’s iWork desktop publishing software, but users of Microsoft Office will still not be able to truly collaborate via Mac OS.  eXpresso is looking into ways we can serve Apple users who prefer Office over iWork.

Google: Personally, I love Google.  They are a great company with excellent vision and seemingly unlimited resources.  They have done an excellent job with Google Docs, but the majority of business people still prefer to use Microsoft Office. Google Docs is having difficulty getting traction in the mainstream business world because most people don’t want to lose the functionality they get in Office, and they don’t want to have to learn how to use a new suite of applications.

eXpresso: 2009 is going to be a fun year.  In Q1, we will be releasing the most exciting build we have ever accomplished.  We have been testing our work and preparing to bring to market the most significant document collaboration service the business world has ever seen. Not only will we be releasing several enhancements to our leading Excel collaboration tool, we will be introducing the ability to collaborate on Word documents and PowerPoint presentations, too.  I have seen it, I have used it, and I can’t wait to launch it. Stay tuned…

PC World came by our booth at the Web 2.0 Expo and put together a little video clip about the interesting collaborative business tools they saw at the show. Check out the video.

Tags: collaborative, business, tools, Web2.0

We had a great time chatting with people at the 2008 Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco last week. Here is a list of questions people approached us with during this show…

What do you do?
We enable people to share Excel files online. Instead of emailing files back and forth, users can upload a spreadsheet, invite users to share it, and collaborate as a group in real-time. All changes are recorded and available for review. Learn more at the eXpresso web site.

How long have you been around?
eXpresso emerged out of an enterprise software company about two years ago. Alpha version was released in April 2007 and Beta followed in August. In March of 2008, we shifted from beta to general release.

Where are you located?
We have teams in the US, Europe, and Asia, but our main office is in Menlo Park. However, we will be moving to Palo Alto, California in May. If you are ever in the area and would like a personal demo of eXpresso, please send us an email, and we can set that up.

Is it secure?
eXpresso takes the security of your files seriously and has implemented several layers of protection to keep your data safe. All files are 128-bit SSL encrypted from the time you upload them to the eXpresso service. Plus, no one can view your spreadsheet unless you proactively assign access controls to that individual. And in addition to the security controls we give our users, we have put a lot of effort and design into creating a secure infrastructure.

Can I use eXpresso Off-Line?
Interesting question from a Web 2.0 crowd, but it is possible to edit the spreadsheets you have uploaded to eXpresso by downloading and installing the eXpresso Off-line for Excel Add-In. This enables you to pull your spreadsheets down from eXpresso and edit them locally on your desktop, no matter where you are. When you’re done, simply save the file back to eXpresso via the Add-In.

Does eXpresso run on Macs?
The Mac OS is not supported. eXpresso runs in a PC environment because of Active X controls and Microsoft’s Office Web Components.

What are the software requirements?
eXpresso runs in Internet Explorer because it requires the Active X control. If you use Firefox, you will need to install the IE Tab extension. You must also have a licensed version of Excel. In some case you may be asked to install Microsoft’s Office Web Components, but that is typically included in the Office suite.

What is the difference between you and Google Docs?
We were asked this question a lot. The quick answer is we make it possible for people who prefer Excel to upload, share and edit their spreadsheets online as a team. Excel is the most ubiquitous business application on the planet, and we have built useful features to help people become more efficient and effective with Excel. We also enable people to use eXpresso online or off-line with our Add-In for desktop installations of Excel. For more details, please check out the blog entry eXpresso’s Blue Ocean.

How much is it?
eXpresso is free, but we also offer a more advanced Pro version which includes additional functionality like cell tracking, file history, spreadsheet comparisons, access via the eXpresso Off-Line Add-In for Excel, and more. eXpresso Pro is only $15/month or $79/year – a savings of over 55%! Learn more at our eXpresso Pricing page.

How big is eXpresso Corp. and are you hiring?
We have over 25 people on our team. We are not currently hiring at this time.

For more answers to other FAQs, please visit eXpresso’s FAQs page.

I’ve recently become acquainted with Michael Sampson’s blog on “Improving the capability of teams that can’t be together, to work together.”

In a recent post on “The People Part of Enterprise Collaboration and Virtual Teams” he quotes a study commissioned by Novel that surveyed IT executives on their experience and plans for collaboration software. Not surprisingly, 80% of them said it is critical or of high importance that individuals in their companies have the ability to collaborate securely within and beyond organizational boundaries. Here’s what I found more interesting. Less than half said their current solutions are extremely or very effective in enabling collaboration among workers, teams or virtual teams.

I think this is a critical point. Organizations are realizing that secure, controlled interaction among people who work in different physical places is important, but they are just now finding the tools to get the job done. Michael mentions several applications that are part of this technology trend, including eXpresso.

In all, I think I enjoyed Michael’s blog so much, not only because eXpresso is in the business of enabling virtual teams, but because we are a virtual team. We have team members in 7 states and in 4 countries. The eXpresso team is somewhat unusual in a lot of ways, but not this one. As organizations become more distributed and the roles of partners and external contributors become more and more integral to success, understanding and managing the virtual team will be something that everyone must achieve.

Tags: excel,, spreadsheets,, online,, collaboration,, business,, productivity,, sharing,, files,, file,, virtual,, expresso

Not long ago ReadWriteWeb wrote correctly that eXpresso expands and extends Excel, noting:

“They extend Excel rather than trying to replace it. That works in the real world. Apart from early adopters with relatively simple spreadsheets, people are comfortable with Excel. It works well, it is extensible, it is easy to use. In an enterprise setting the cost of Excel compared to the functionality is a complete non-issue. But Excel’s native collaboration tools are weak and emailing versions around gets to be a real pain when you get to 3 or more contributors; that introduces errors in what can be mission critical applications.”

This was an astute observation. That exactly describes how eXpresso works.

In the real world, Excel has become the standard for spreadsheets. People use it because it works for them. It’s robust. It’s proven. It’s got all the features businesspeople need.

Why try to replace that?

We looked carefully at all the features and determined how to transform Excel for the 21st Century – for the way businesses work today. Teams are spread out. They are all over the country, sometimes all over the globe. And with email inboxes so clogged these days, it’s nice not to have to constantly search to find the latest document.

Those are the kind of simple problems we set out to solve, making Excel easier to use by distributed teams and easier to collaborate within. We did not set out to replace Excel, but we did intend to make it better for businesses.

Tags: onlinespreadsheets, spreadsheets, Excel, business, communities, eXpresso, Corp, Web2.0, SaaS, readwriteweb, article, news, microsoft

The story goes that a husband asks his wife why she makes a meatloaf, cuts it in half, then puts the halves in a pan side-by-side. She answered that her mother had always done it that way. Now curious herself, she phoned her mother, “Mom why do we cut our meatloaf in half before cooking it?” Mom answered, “That’s how Gram always did it.” So the wife calls Gram with the same question. Gram said “I don’t know why you cut your meatloaf in half, but I do it because my pan was too small for a whole thing.” The point of the story is that habits, good or bad, often get passed along without questioning, “Why”.

Changing habits is one of the hardest things we can do. Anyone who plays golf can attest to that, but our business lives are not so different. We get in the habit of doing certain things in a particular way. Even when there is a better option, we’re reluctant to change.

Emailing spreadsheets is one of the most common things we do in business today. It spans companies and positions. People in administration, sales, marketing, finance and management email dozens of spreadsheets attachments every day. As a result, we all live with multiple file versions, spreadsheet clutter, and security risks. But like the new bride, very few of us question why we attach spreadsheets to emails.

When we launched eXpresso, we knew we had a better way of managing and sharing spreadsheets. We have lots of converts that “were tired of cutting the meatloaf in half” and wanted to simplify life and make things easier for themselves. We also have lots of people that are trying, but just keep falling back into their old conventional groove of email attachment. So, we thought we’d introduce an easy first step to get the “change” ball rolling.

eXpresso offline for Excel allows you to work on Excel on your familiar desktop and save it to eXpresso for distribution and sharing. Get all the benefits of a single version of Excel – audit trails, real time update, sharing – without having to give up the power and convenience of the desktop. eXpresso offline for Excel connects seamlessly to the eXpresso server.

We always thought this hybrid model was the best approach to working in today’s environment. We just forgot how hard it is to change, even for a better option. Why not try this easy first step and let us know how it works.

Tags: onlinespreadsheets, spreadsheets, Excel, business, communities, eXpresso, Corp, Web2.0, SaaS, collaboration, small, business, email

The SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) marketplace is relatively young and going through dramatic changes every day. The debate rages among the “professional papers”, blogs, and articles on what makes a good SaaS application and how to monetize it. One thing is clear: the old world of shipping software (either with a CD or electronically with a key) and charging a license fee with ongoing maintenance is as outdated as an 8-track tape. I’m sure many large enterprise vendors will cling to that old model as long as possible. But when really smart guys, like Oracle’s Larry Ellison, start hedging their bets with investments in companies like NetSuite, the writing is on the wall.

So back to the question of structuring payment procedures and monetization policies. Social networks or Google display thousands of ads per day; just like Network television, sponsors pay for viewers. Many users think the clutter and inconvenience is a fair trade for a free service. But business SaaS users have a more serious mission and are ready to pay for valuable applications. Salesforce.com and WebEx come to mind as successful examples of a subscription model with a reasonable fee.

After much consideration, we decided to come up with a hybrid payment model. eXpresso Pro is the unlimited, full-function product that is only $79 per year. If you are a Pro user and you want to invite a non-eXpresso user to share a spreadsheet, we will still offer a free version of eXpresso. It will have limited functionality, but it should be perfect for the casual user or the occasional member of a project or sales team.

We are grateful to the users who helped make the eXpresso public beta a success. We are committed to providing excellent support and continuing innovation to users of both the Free and Pro versions.

Tags: onlinespreadsheets, spreadsheets, Excel, business, communities, eXpresso, Corp, Web2.0, SaaS, business