Appirio Introduces New Products and Services That Accelerate On-Demand Adoption Across All Levels of an Organization

New Personal and Premium Editions of Appirio Sync Tools Make Individuals More Productive; New Business Model Prototyping Service Shows Executives How On-Demand Can Transform Their Business


SAN FRANCISCO, CA--(Marketwire - September 3, 2008) - Office 2.0 Conference -- Appirio (www.appirio.com) today announced a new set of products and services that accelerate the adoption of on-demand at both the grass roots and executive management levels of an organization, helping everyone from individuals to entire enterprises do more of their work in the cloud. Helping to drive adoption from the bottom up, Appirio now offers a new Personal and Premium edition of its popular synchronization tools for Google and salesforce.com, empowering individual users to more easily connect their day-to-day productivity tools. Helping to drive adoption from the top down, Appirio now offers a packaged service that facilitates the prototyping of new business models using on-demand platforms, giving executives tangible insight into how cloud computing can impact their business.

"Cloud computing has had a profound impact on the way individuals work and the way businesses run, but we've only just scratched the surface," said Chris Barbin, CEO of Appirio. "Appirio will continue to deliver both products and services that break down the barriers to large-scale on-demand adoption. At one end of the spectrum we're mobilizing individuals by giving them tools to connect the different on-demand solutions they rely on to get their job done. On the other end of the spectrum we're helping executives 'think bigger' about the power of cloud computing and what it can bring to their company."

Products to Empower Individuals

Thousands of on-demand services and solutions exist today to make users more productive and businesses more successful, but unfortunately few of these work together. This disconnect not only limits the potential of each individual tool, but also forces users to manually compensate for the separation between the tools they use to work and the business information they need.

To address this issue, Appirio today announced Appirio Personal Sync for Salesforce and Google, a free product offering that allows users to selectively synchronize information from their personal Gmail email and calendar system with their organization's Salesforce Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system. For the first time, individuals can combine the on-demand tools they use personally with the tools they're given to conduct business, without any application for IT to install or configure.

For companies that use Salesforce together with Google Apps (Google's business-focused communication and collaboration applications), Appirio also unveiled Premium Contact and Calendar Sync. This subscription-based service extends Appirio's free synchronization products, unveiled earlier this year and being used by more than 1,500 organizations of all sizes worldwide. The new Premium edition delivers unlimited sync for both contacts and calendars, centralized user administration, and enterprise-level support in one convenient package.

Services to Empower Executives

Today Appirio also announced a new Business Model Prototyping service that capitalizes on Appirio's expertise in business process optimization and experience creating innovative, custom business solutions. This unique 4-8 week engagement is targeted to executives at large and mid-sized organizations who want a better understanding of how cloud computing can radically improve their business processes, help them reach new customers, solve new problems or penetrate new markets. Appirio experts work with an organization's executive team to identify new business models which previously could not be realized because of limitations in resources or IT capabilities. Appirio will then build a working prototype using leading on-demand platforms like Salesforce and Google, providing a concrete way to make that vision a reality in a matter of weeks or months, not years.

One example of this kind of on-demand transformation is Author Solutions, a mid-size publishing company with $50M in revenues and 400 employees. Working with Appirio, Author Solutions recently moved its core business process -- helping independent authors publish books -- to the cloud in just five months. Working closely with executives and IT, Appirio helped design and build a customized book publishing system on the Force.com platform that enables authors to self-publish books at a fraction of the cost and time it used to take them. It also provides Author Solutions with a powerful system on which to build future functionality quickly and easily, allowing them to stay well ahead of the competition.

"Our new system enables authors to take an idea from conception to completion -- from scribbles on a napkin to selling their book on-line -- for less than $1,000. This would never have been possible in the traditional publishing world," said Kevin Weiss, CEO of Author Solutions. "Appirio has helped us move a process that has long relied on manual, time intensive activities and turned it into something that is streamlined and demands a fraction of the resources. Today our company is completely 'in the cloud' and we can't imagine running it any other way."

Pricing and Availability

Appirio's new products and services announced today are available immediately. For information on the Personal or Premium edition of Appirio Contact & Calendar Sync for Salesforce and Google, please visit www.appirio.com/products/. If you're interested in applying for Appirio's new Business Model Prototype service, please visit www.appirio.com/bmp/.

About Appirio

Appirio (www.appirio.com) provides products and services that help enterprises accelerate their adoption of on-demand. Appirio has a proven track record of delivering business value to customers by implementing mission-critical Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solutions based on platforms such as Salesforce and Google Apps, and developing innovative applications that connect and extend today's leading on-demand platforms. Appirio was founded in 2006, is the fastest growing partner of salesforce.com and Google, and is backed by Sequoia Capital.

Contact Information: Contact Information: Robin Bulanti Kulesa Public Relations for Appirio 650-340-1986